Fic: Starlight, Part Five

["jbstories _" <jbstories@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Part Five
---------------

The room around her was busseling with activity. To a person removed the
excitement, as Buffy was, it seemed almost as if someone had hit the fast
forward button on a giant television screen. Like the morning before, Buffy
had awoken to find Willow in her arm. Then just as they untangled
themselves, Giles came into the room followed by a very disgruntled
Spike-the vampire formerly known as William the Bloody did not appreciate
being used to carry out manual labour, which in this case consisted of
bringing Buffy's wheelchair into the room. Then, after some nervous
greetings and useless information, Buffy had been lifted from the bed-and in
a tense silence, I feel the need to add-and placed into the chair she now
sat in.

Buffy knew that she should have been playing more attention, and taking a
more active interest in helping her friends search out the answers that
could cure her current predicament, yet the level of self-pity she was
currently wallowing in took up a supreme amount of energy and she couldn't
seem to muster up enough energy to inquire how things were going.

"Enjoying the new wheels?"

Buffy turned her head to see Spike standing beside her.

"Don't you have an elsewhere to be?" Buffy asked wearily.

"Is it so hear to believe that I just may be concerned about you and want to
help?" the vampire asked in a most innocent tone.

"Yes."

Spike shrugged and dropped down onto the floor next to Buffy.

"Now you know how Spike feels," the vampire said a moment later in a tone
that was almost conversational. "But it's not so bloody funny now that the
shoe's on the other foot, is it? Is it?"

"Go away," Buffy growled.

"I may now be just a Care-Bear with fangs, but you're now an even bigger
waste of space than I am," Spike responded ignoring Buffy's previous
statement.

"Yet I could still kick your sorry ass," Buffy responded looking down at
him. "How pathetic does that make you?"

Spike was silent for a moment, no doubt stewing that Buffy was indeed
correct. But then he smiled.

"You'd have to catch me first," he said looking up.

It hit it's mark and they were both silent for a moment. There were wounds
that needed to be licked, and ego's that needed to be bandaged. It was time
to tend to their wounds.

"They're going to go after the thing that attacked you, you know?" Spike
said his eyes focused on the younings in front of him-and they were
youngings to him, even Giles.

"They want to…I know," Buffy responded shortly. She had hoped the silence
would continue or he'd go away. She really wasn't in the mood for this.

"And you're going to let them?" Spike asked forcing a note of incredulity
into his voice.

Buffy didn't respond because once again Spike had hit a sensitive stop. She
didn't want them to track the demon that attacked her down. And she
certainly didn't want them to fight it, not after she knew what it was
capable of. Not after she was still bearing the effects of its attack.

"Your concern for their well being is well…simply chilling," Spike injected
into the silence while inducing a full body shiver for effect.

"You know nothing of my concern," Buffy responded bitingly.

Spike smirked.

"Oh really?" he asked smugly. "I think I know a little something about it."

"Shouldn't you be stealing candy from a baby, or scaring the elderly, you
big baddie you," Buffy said practically snaring.

"You, 'Bitter and Decrepit' Barbie, are scared out of you bloody mind and
wallowing in enough self-pity to choke a fucking horse. In fact, you're so
wrapped up in your whole 'woe is me' routine that you're just going to let
Marianne, the Professor and Gilligan over there fight a demon that used you
as a chew toy because you're in pain…and you call me a baddie?" Spike
asked.

Silence met him.

"They're not going after it," Buffy finally said.

"But they ARE going after it. They're going after it, and they're going to
fight it…to save their precious Snow Buffy…and they're going to die."

"They're not going after it," Buffy said shaking her head as if to ward off
what he was saying.

"What's going to stop them?" Spike asked the picture of innocent curiosity.

"I'll stop them!" Buffy declared quietly yet ferociously.

"How?" Spike asked a well timed moment later.

"I'll…I'll…" Buffy faltered. What would she do? Everything that had come
to mind was no longer viable as a result of her current circumstances. What
would she do? What could she do?

"You'll…you'll what?" Spike asked with barely restrained glee.

"I'll…"

"Well, I'm not expert…wait, yes I am. You might want to put a little more
thought into that, if you want to avoid that whole them dying
unpleasantness," he finished rising to his feet.

Buffy focused her attention on the Scoobs after Spike walked away, and as
she observed them she felt a heaviness descend upon her chest. The cause of
this heaviness? Spike was right. They would track the demon down, and they
would fight it-despite the odds of victory, if there was even the slightest
chance that the demon could help her-and they would die. All for her, they
would do that all for her and it made her want to weep, because she knew
that she couldn't allow this happen, she couldn't allow them to fight it.
So, she sat there-the one thing she could do rather well-and considered all
that she must do and all that she couldn't do, and the heaviness settled
more firmly over her and a tear ---though quickly wiped away-came to her
eye. What would she do? What could she do?

================================================================

Buffy wheeled her chair back and forth by the opening to the hallway that
led to Giles's downstairs bed and bath-the place that had been home to her
for the past two days. If one was looking closely enough they would have
been able to detect a twisting of her lips, and a distortion of her features
they would have been hard pressed to categorize. Was it a smile? Was it a
grimace? Well, it just so happened that someone was looking close enough to
see this particular expression on the Slayer's face, and she was at a loss
for how to describe it.

"Buffy?" Willow asked walking over to where the Slayer had embarked upon her
mad cycle of pacing.

Intense blue eyes peered up at her and Willow felt lanced. The pain, and
the dejection, in those kept in firmly in her place. It was as if she had
taken root.

"Buffy…" she said again, this time more softly, this time not a question but
a plea.

Buffy opened her mouth as if to say something, but then promptly shut it
again. A hundred, a thousand, little retorts to her friends very heart felt
plea had come to her lips. A defense to the gently voiced plea no different
from a porcupine's pins or a possum playing dead. But she stopped it before
the words tumbled to her lips. As much as she wanted to lash out she
wouldn't unleash her frustrations on Willow.

"How's things?" Buffy asked releasing Willow from her gaze and turning her
attention to Giles and Xander who were still seated in the designated
research area.

"As always…slow and boring," Willow said keeping her eyes trained on the
Slayer while Buffy's roamed. "What's wrong?" She had spent to much time
around Buffy, observing Buffy-and though the Slayer didn't know this, loving
Buffy-to not know when something was wrong with her.

"Nothing's wrong, what makes you think something's wrong?" Buffy asked
glancing up at Willow while tapping the wheel of her chair.

"I can just tell," Willow responded. No matter how hard Buffy tried to hide
it she could detect traces of bitterness in her words, and it stung her to
see and hear her friend in such obvious pain.

Buffy looked up at Willow thoughtfully for a moment, then bowed her head
seemingly in thought. Then she did the most unexpected thing. She started
to laugh. Loudly. Hysterically. She laughed so hard tears escaped from
her eyes. She laughed so hard that Giles and Xander stopped reading their
books and directed their attention towards her. Then as abruptly as she
started she stopped and focused her gaze on Willow again. There was no
amusement in her eyes, only a self-depreciation-and not her usually
fun-loving 'yes I kill vampires for a living' kind, but a darker more
sinister kind-along with a self-loathing of sorts.

She beckoned Willow to come closer by crooking her finger. Willow did as
she was asked and bent closer.

"You want to know what's wrong?" Buffy asked without inflection.

Willow nodded.

"I…" Buffy smiled here. It was not a nice smile. "I have to go to the
bathroom."

"So…" Willow started to say, but she didn't need to complete the question.
The answer hit her like a tonne of bricks or bucket of ice water.

"I see I'm not the only one who didn't think of the…logistics of my new
found position," Buffy said in response to the look on Willow's face.

"We'll think of something," Willow said confidently looking down into
Buffy's eyes.

Buffy smiled. This time a real one, and all for Willow.

"We'd better think of it fast," she responded dryly.

Willow's eyes widened and her lips parted slightly.

"How long have you…"

"About two hours," Buffy responded with a shrug.

"Two hours?" Willow asked incredulously though she didn't know why she was
surprised. It was a very 'Buffy' thing to do.

"Give or take," Buffy responded. "Yeah."

They stared at each other for a moment in silence.

"Is everything alright over there?" Giles called out. He and Xander had
been watching them from when Buffy had lapsed into her laughing fit.

"Right as rain," Buffy called back. Then she hesitated for a second before
calling, "Oh, Giles?"

"Yes?" the watcher asked turning to face her again.

"How much do you like this carpet?" Buffy asked him in all innocence, or so
she wanted it to seem.

Willow slapped her on the shoulder.

"Don't answer that," Willow said sternly, turning around to face the older
man.

"Never hurts to have a back up plan," Buffy muttered softly.

"Now, you're just being gross," Willow said in a like tone, turning back
around to face Buffy.

"It's a fact of life," Buffy responded. "Birds do it, bee's do it, even
educated flees do it."

"No Buffy," Willow said in a mockingly patronizing way. "That's the game
of love."

"Will," Buffy said in a more somber tone. "This IS going to be a labour of
love."

Willow was quiet for a moment. Buffy was right of course, and that being
the fact there was no one better to help Buffy than herself.

"How's your upper body strength?" the hacker asked a plan forming her mind.

"Fine. My arms are still Slayerific. It's south of the border that things
start to get screwy."

"You have no idea how relieved I am to hear that," Willow responded sighing.
"We're definitely going to need it."

"That's your 'I have a plan' voice," Buffy said.

"Yes, yes it is," Willow responded enigmatically.

"Well then, into the wild blue yonder," Buffy said positioning her wheels
towards the hallway.

===============================================================

That's it for now, part six coming soon.

Later,
Janine

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