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Chapter 15
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"No!" Dawn crossed her arms in front of her and gave a look that even Resolve Face Willow had to envy.  "If any of you think for one single minute that I'm going to let you ship me off to Sasquatch Central to watch Angel brood and help Cordy change diapers while my sister and Spike are both still missing, you're crazier than Spike's first girlfriend!"
 
Giles hoped he didn't appear to shrink under the girl's thunderous glare.  Dawn could be surprisingly intimidating.  "Buffy would be the first to insist you be moved to a place of safety, Dawn; you know that is the truth."
 
"Why don't we find her and ask her, instead of sending me Demon Express to the Great North?" Her jaw was set to stubborn plus one.
 
"Dawnie, you know how unstable everything is here.  We're pretty sure you'd pass the new DNA tests, but not completely sure.  We aren't even sure if we're safe here ourselves!"  Willow's brow furrowing from dealing with the teen was causing early wrinkles.
 
"You know if Spike were here, he'd never let you send me away.  He'd totally get that I have to be here to help find my sister," Dawn's eyes teared up.
 
Giles took off his glasses and gave them a good polish. "That is just the point.  Spike is not here, nor is Buffy.  Our two strongest fighters are missing and all of our resources stretched far too thin as it is.  The only way to ensure you will be there to great your sister once we do locate her and bring her home is to send you to the refugee camp in Washington."  He sighed deeply.  "We merely want to ensure your survival to the best of our ability."
 
"Yeah, I get that, but I'm still not going." Willow glanced at Dawn's feet, fully expecting to see her heels physically dug into the packed earth of the cave. "What about Tara?  You planning to ship her off for her own good too?"
 
Willow bit back an angry retort but looked daggers at the girl.
 
"Enough!" Giles rarely raised his voice but did now.  "Tara hasn't even been released from hospital as yet.  She will scarcely be capable of a long journey for quite a while.  If and when Tara is ready, I can assure you that she will have the good sense to understand when others are merely looking out for her best interests."
 
"Fine, I'll go!"

Her two companions nearly drew a breath of relief.  "When Tara does."  With that Dawn turned and flounced back to her corner of the cave to pout in privacy.
 
"So," whispered Willow, "What do we do now?"
 
Giles took off his glasses and rubbed his face instead of the much abused eyewear.  "We do what is necessary and render the difficult less difficult." He picked up one of his ancient grimoires and began to page through. "There is at least one relatively safe and simple spell to induce sleep we can use."
 
"She's going to be mad," Willow warned.
 
"But at least she will be alive."
 
***
 
Riley kicked at Spike's remaining intact rib and smiled at the audible crack. The beating had been brutal. It had taken quite a bit out of Finn. 'I’m gonna need a good rub down after this encounter,' he thought as he massaged his sore shoulder.  His superiors had given him free rein regarding how much damage to inflict, short of dusting 17.  Their interest was in discovering any changes in the speed of healing after a week without feeding and the more injuries the better for that experiment.
 
There were plenty more tests of this kind on the roster, Riley was pleased to note.
 
The psychological aspects of the testing were a bit trickier, but Riley was sure he could hit on the right combinations to get measurable responses from Spike.  One thing he had noticed in his encounters with the vampire while he was running free was that Spike seemed to have a broader emotional spectrum than most of the vampire hostiles.  Emotions were the perfect target to play the sort of mind games the doctors had in mind.
 
"Hey, 17, bet I have some info you might find interesting," Riley bent over the broken vampire and grinned.
 
"Nothin' bout you interests me, 'cept how long it might take for you to bleed out, you wanker." 
 
Really, Riley was growing tired of the bravado 17 continued to wear like a shield. "Fantasize all you want, it’s never gonna happen." Riley laughed.  "You got lucky the first time you were in our labs.  Now we have the whole beautiful world on our side.  No one to complain, no one to help, and, in your case, no one to care."
 
Spike felt a pang at the words, then thought of a young girl with wide, trusting eyes and a bad habit of getting into trouble nearly every Tuesday.  He consoled himself that at least one person would care.
 
"Yeah, you might have been useful as extra muscle for a while, but you know as well as I do that you were only a sometimes useful 'thing' to Buffy and her friends.  Without that chip we gave you, you wouldn't have even been that," Riley taunted.
 
"That the info you had to share?" Spike managed a short burst of what passed for a laugh.  "Said it herself more than once; ‘m not deaf here.  Like I said, you've got nothin' to bring to ‘share time’, Finn."  Spike rolled onto his back and bit back the groans of agony that wanted to spill from his bleeding mouth.
 
"Well, I don't know about that."  Riley sneered down at the prone vampire, his expression filled with malice.  "Bet you don't have any idea what's been happening in South America since you were there last."
 
The only connection he had to South America was a series of bad memories of his dark princess and a century's worth of devotion and dreams trampled beneath the hooves of an antlered demon followed by careless dismissal by the love of his life. 'Don't let the berk see he's touched a nerve.' 
 
As far as Spike knew, the soldier had no way of knowing about Brazil and Dru.  "Carnivale?  Wreched urchins roamin' the streets of Rio bein' picked off by my kind?  Dozens of Pele wannabes practicin' their kickin?"
 
Finn smirked, "Other labs, other Sub-humans.  One might interest you.  I've read the reports and saw some of the pictures. I’ll have to show them to you.  Man, some of you can sure take a licking and keep on ticking. The sickest of you even seem to like it.  She sure did."
 
Spike had grown still, not even breathing, and Riley knew he had made a direct hit.
 
"Gave our psychiatrists a real interesting subject to study while she lasted.  That was one seriously crazy vampire!  Not sure how useful some of the data will be in the end, but a real interesting case study."  Riley really wished Spike's eyes were open so he could watch as the information sank in. "Maybe your newest obsession will hold up a little better, or last a little longer."
 
Finn would never have believed something as broken as the vampire currently crumpled before him could lunge with quite that much force before the chip had finally dropped him.  "Hose this thing down and put it back in its cage," Finn ordered his men.
 
***
Chaim welcomed the soft spoken lad with a smile, “So, Mr. Levinson, have you made your choice then?”
 
“Choice?”  Jonathan looked at the old man with confusion.
 
“To follow your heart, even if it’s hard, and do the right thing or to let fear consume you,” the elder man clarified.
 
“But what can I do?” Jonathan asked.  “You know my friend that I told you guys about, the one from my Star Trek club?  They came and took him away, right out of class!”  Jonathan looked shamefaced.  “Lots of us were friends of his in that class, but no one said anything or did anything.”
 
“And why do you think that was the choice you all made?” Rabbi Goldstein asked.
 
“We were scared,” Jonathan admitted and lowered his head.  “It was like we all were waiting for someone else to say something, to take action, but no one did.”  He began to softly cry.  “He was my friend and I didn’t even try to help him.”
 
The Rabbi nodded and put a consoling arm around the distraught young man.  “I know your soul is burdened.  Fear is a powerful emotion.  It’s primal, goes back to the days when we all lived in caves and feared the night.  Courage isn’t the absence of fear, lad, it is doing the right thing even when we are frightened.  You aren’t the first to fail at that, but this one failure does not make you a coward.  It should teach you to dig deep and find the courage in the future though.”
 
Chaim had been whispering to Imam Azim while the Rabbi spoke his words of comfort and encouragement.  Now, with a nod to his colleague, he turned to Jonathan, “Do you want a chance to make up for your inaction with your friend?  Make this lesson worth the learning?”
 
“How can I?  They took Dwayne to the camps.  Am I supposed to go break him out?” Jonathan turned imploring hands toward the kindly, older man.
 
The Imam spoke, “No one expects you to commit suicide.  The Holy Koran is clear in many places that there are rewards for martyrdom, but only in special cases.  It is absolutely forbidden to kill people except when ordered by Allah.  To my knowledge, Allah did not charge you with this duty!  We can but pray for your friend now.”
 
Jonathan looked crestfallen as the Imam continued, “But you could help to keep others from being taken.”
 
“How?” Jonathan looked eagerly at the men gathered round him.
 
Chaim looked at his fellows and they all nodded in agreement.  “There is someone you need to meet.  He’s taken on a large and important task and could use some willing helpers.  My Willow told me that you dabble in magic, is this so?”
 
Jonathan looked a bit nervous, considering his present company--religious folk not usually being magic-friendly--but nodded in the affirmative.
 
“Someone with your skills could be of great help to this man in making certain that innocent people have a chance to get to a place of safety.”
 
“How’s that?
 
“Let me introduce you.  He’s in the other room going over some plans with Reverend Prentiss.” Chaim led Jonathan to an adjoining room.
 
Lorne looked up from the maps spread on a card table and gave the newcomer a piercing glance.
Reverend Prentiss raised his brows as well when he noted the young man accompanying his comrades, “Who do we have here?”
 
Chaim nudged Jonathan forward and indicated the brightly dressed, horned, green demon that looked strangely at home in the synagogue’s fellowship room.  “Lorne of the Deathwok clan, allow me to present a young mage who wants to do some good in the world.”  He drew Jonathan closer to the table and put his age-gnarled hands on the boy’s shoulders, as if to impart some of his own strength to the timid young man.  “This is Jonathan Levinson.  He can do magic and, according to my Willow, he is fairly gifted.”
 
Lorne looked at Jonathan closely and with interest then grinned, “Well, aren’t you a blessing and such a cute babka too.  Want to sing me a tune?”
 
“Jonathan looked confused at being called a pastry and blushed brightly. “Sing?”
 
Lorne explained, “I read people and demons when they sing.  Ran a club in LA called Caritas for quite a while and got plenty of practice.  It’s what I do best.
 
“Read people?  Like Sylvia Browne or that Edwards guy who talks to dead people on TV?”
 
Lorne laughed in delight, “Not quite.  I don’t do predictions or talk to the dead, unless you mean vampires.  I could probably read a zombie too, but they aren’t very verbal.”
 
“So I just sing and you can tell…what?”
 
“I can see a lot of things.  Your potential is a big one.  I can also see if you are on the up and up, and that’s the main reason I’m here:  to have a little karaoke session with some of those looking for a safe place to hunker down.” Seeing Jonathan still looked a bit confused, he further explained, “See, we don’t want anyone finding our hiding places if they are going to cause trouble or work for the lunatics currently running the asylum.  They sing and I either red light them or send them on to refuge.” 
 
“Oh!  Like a lie detector?”
 
“Close enough.  If you’re our very own Harry Potter, we can use your help in sorting everyone out with a truth spell.”  Lorne looked hopeful.  “Still, I need to check you out first, so I need a tune, anything will do.”
 
Jonathan squirmed, not comfortable being in the spotlight at all, much less while trying to carry a tune. 
“It’s been a long road.
Getting from there to here
But my time is finally here
And I will see my dreams come alive…” 
Jonathan’s reed-thin voice managed to stay on key.
 
Lorne’s face lit up, “A Star Trek fan.  Interesting choice, but I see you are going to be a real asset.”  He wrapped an arm around the lad and gave him a brief hug.  “I think we’re going to get along just fine.  So how good are you with those truth spells?”
 
***  
 
Xander couldn’t wait for his shift to end.  ‘If Max doesn’t shut that damned radio off, I might just have to indulge in a little workplace accident to save my sanity!’  The Charlie Cooper Show used to be only an hour of hate and bluster, but with the current world situation, his program was now on for at least three hours and every one of them was piped out of Taylor’s old fashioned boom box at their current work site.  It set Xander’s teeth on edge.  “Just how much outrage and fear can one person spew before they get carted away anyway?” he whispered.
 
“Harris, bring that air compressor over here!” the boss in question ordered.
 
“Great, closer to the blaring demagogue,” Xander muttered to himself, being careful not to be overheard.
 
 …” We have some in this nation mollycoddling these things and making apologies for their actions!  These demons have killed thousands of decent human beings and that’s just here in the United States.  I hear the whiners saying, “Not all of them are murderers.”  To those naïve lunkheads, I say, “Do you want to take a chance that the ‘nice’ demon next door isn’t going to up and eat your kid next week?”  
 
Xander privately thought no self-respecting demon would want to be anywhere near good ol’ Coop, much less eating his kid.  Actually, he doubted Charlie had any kids, because he’d seen pictures of his boss’s radio hero and he couldn’t imagine any woman ever letting him touch her, much less make a baby with him.
 
“Any chance I can get off a half hour early today, boss?” Xander smiled falsely at the man he no longer respected at all.  “My cousin is getting discharged from the hospital and I need to fill out all the paperwork and pick up any prescriptions before I can take her home.”
 
Max glared at Xander, looked pointedly at his watch and then the soon-to-be preschool.  He sighed in a much put-upon way.  “I suppose I’d be a total jerk if I said no.”
 
Xander waited to see if Taylor was going to go for complete jerkdom option.
 
“Yeah, a half hour, but not one minute earlier, got it, Harris?”  He took the air compressor from Xander and started to walk to the tool table before throwing a caveat over his shoulder, “I’ll expect you to work through lunch tomorrow to make up for it though.”
 
“You’re all heart, boss,” Xander mumbled.
 
“What’s that?”
 
“I said thanks; you’ve got a big heart,” Xander lied.
 
“Got that right!  Way too soft a touch.” Max Taylor was either the most deluded human alive or a really bad comedian.
 
 
At exactly a half hour before the crew was scheduled to finish, Xander headed to his car to pick up Anya for the trip to the hospital to collect Tara. 
 
Willow’s sweetheart was going to need some special after-care, but she was finally going to be released from the hospital.  Willow was frustrated that she couldn’t take the chance of coming along, but she had already made enough of the staff nervous during Tara’s stay.
 
***
 
Anya was sullen.  The increasing campaign against all things demon was starting to wear down even her optimistic nature.  Xander wished the old Magic Box was still up and running.  His brilliant girl was making a profit with the party goods they now offered as merchandise, but that profit was nothing like what it had been when they catered to the magic users of Sunnydale. Nothing like a boatload of sales to perk Anya up, even in times like these.
 
“Did the doctor say how often Tara is supposed to come in for physical therapy?”
 
“They set her up for three times a week for the next six months, then a re-evaluation,” Xander shuffled the small stack of papers that the Transition and Care representative had given him.  “We need to get these prescriptions filled too.  Some pain killers and a muscle relaxant, it looks like.”
 
“I’m certainly glad Giles had Tara listed on the business insurance.  She only helped out part-time and I was against the added expense of adding her to the plan when Giles first did it, but now I could kiss him!” Anya glared at Xander in annoyance, “You would have to go and claim to be Tara’s only relative!  We would have been stuck with the hospital bill if she hadn’t been insured.”
 
“Ahn, we couldn’t let Willow keep worrying.  One of us had to claim relationship or we wouldn’t have had any legal right to know how she was doing.”  Xander felt like he’d been having this same conversation for weeks now.  “Anyway, it’s beside the point now.  She’s covered for all but the deductible, and Giles paid that from his savings. “
 
“I should invest in insurance companies.  Humans are so breakable.  There’s a lot of money to be made insuring them…maybe the healthcare industry too.  I don’t know why I didn’t think about this before now?”  Anya jotted a note to remind herself to check stock prices in the morning.
 
The nurse wheeled a wan-looking Tara towards the couple waiting for her.  “Ms. Maclay still has some residual issues,” she warned them. “She’s still having some trouble with short term memory and her limbs on the right side don’t always cooperate, do they, sweetie?”  She gave a saccharine smile to the soft-eyed, gentle girl in the wheelchair. 
 
“I’m doing much b-b-better.  I can’t wait t-to get home,” Tara smiled at them all.
 
“And we can’t wait to get you there either,” Xander assured her.  “Willow is making all your favorite foods for dinner.  I think there’s enough to feed a platoon!”
 
Tara ducked her head and blushed, “No need to m-m-make a fuss.”
 
“Don’t say that!” Anya exclaimed in mock horror.  “A person just home from the hospital should be pampered by the one who loves them best.  You should demand presents!”
 
Tara gave a short laugh.  “Just yummy food is present enough.”
 
The aide helped settle Tara into Xander’s car, “Now, no more taking on groups of rough young boys, okay?”
 
“D-d-didn’t want to last t-t-time.  Couldn’t let them h-hurt Davey.” Tara felt her eyes tear up at the memory.
 
The aide patted her shoulder, “Of course not.  He was an innocent human.  He’s even been on my floor a time or two over the years.  He’s not some dirty demon!  What were those boys thinking?”
 
“Demons aren’t any dirtier than humans…well, except for a few that live in sewers, that is,” Anya stated indignantly.
 
“Interesting,” the aide gave a jaundiced glare at Anya that didn’t go unnoticed by Xander.  “Do you know many demons… Miss …Jenkins, was it?”
 
“Ahn reads a lot,” Xander rushed to cover for his girlfriend.
 
“Indeed.  That’s better than first-hand knowledge at any rate,” the aide agreed, still giving a suspicious look at Anya.  “Don’t want to think of a nice…human…girl like you involved with the likes of those hell-born monsters.”
 
Xander couldn’t get away fast enough.  He only hoped his pounding heart would slow a bit before he had to turn around and check himself in for an EKG.  “Ahn, honey, I think you need to be more careful what you say.  I’m not telling you to shut up; we don’t do that anymore.  I’m just worried about you.”
 
“That woman just made me furious,” Anya huffed.  “I get so tired of all the nonsense I hear people say about demons in general.  They aren’t all alike, you know!  Everyone’s making blanket statements and they don’t even know what they’re talking about.  You can’t judge whole groups of people on just a few; it’s not fair or smart.”
 
“I know, honey, but you put yourself at risk tilting at windmills.  You aren’t going to change the minds of people like that nurse’s aide.  She didn’t form her opinion based on reason, so you can’t use reason to change her opinion,” Xander sighed.
 
Anya looked at him proudly, “When did you get so wise?”

“Wisdom and the Xan-man are not total strangers,” he quipped.  “Even a hardhead like me can learn if I want to.”  He squeezed her hand lovingly, “And with the right teacher.”



*A/N: Jonathan’s song choice was “Faith of the Heart” (theme song for the TV series “Enterprise”), written by Diane Warren