FF: Fever Chapter Four(b)

["Christeen Demons" <Shyfox30@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hey guys, sorry it's been a while...work has been hectic...but here's the 
second half of chapter four...hope you like it.




*****

"Excuse me?" Sheila's eyes squinted, her hand rubbing at the tender spot in 
her head that was throbbing to beat the band. Her stomach flipped as what 
she perceived as reality suddenly swam out of focus. The people around her 
appeared, blurry, unfocused, their nonsensical words floating like useless 
logs in her battered and confused mind. She'd grab frantically at one word 
or two that made sense, but the rest left her reeling, unsure what was real 
or true in her world. "I'm sorry...but...what exactly are you people talking 
about? What is Buffy hunting...and why...my daughter is sick." Sheila waved 
expansively in the direction of her daughter's hospital bed, hoping that the 
rationalization would turn her world upright and normal again.

Mr Giles cool hazel eyes tangled with hers and her breath caught in her 
chest, blocking an involuntary sob. His eyes held concern mixed with a 
large dose of sympathy and she felt a remarkable, bewildering urge to slap 
him silly. It was a look one would give an incompetant boob, or an 
overwrought mother. While she might have been the latter, she
was certainly not the former. Her eyes swept the room, touching but not 
resting on those that shared the same look, Joyce, a woman she had come to 
trust, Xander, the boy she had known since his childhood, her throat ached 
with the urge to scream at them hysterically.

Giles could see the hysteria building in Sheila Rosenberg and attempted to 
control it. "Yes...your daughter is sick." He agreed slowly. "We're all 
very aware of that...but...she isn't sick in a conventional way."

'Of course not.' Sheila thought crossly. 'She doesn't do anything anymore 
in the conventional way it seems, why should getting sick be any different.' 
She could sense the irrationality in even the tone her thoughts were 
taking, but she could do nothing to control that. "What does that mean?" 
Sheila asked, her voice rising with her emotions as she unconsciously wrung 
her hands together.

Giles could see he was fumbling the ball badly with Willow's mother, but he 
determined to bring clarity to the obviously shaken and upset woman. He 
tried a different tack. "How...how much has Willow told you about 
Buffy...about what she can do?" He asked, gazing over his glasses, watching 
her expression carefully. He noticed the confusion,
watched as she shook her head, her brow creasing in thought, as her hand 
moved in circles across her forehead. He could only surmise that there was 
a headache forming right between the poor woman's eyes, and wished 
offhandedly that for once he didn't have to be the bearer of bad news.

Thrown momentarily by the apparent sidetrack Mr. Giles had chosen to take, 
she met his eyes, feeling her head begin to throb again as she tried to 
figure out where he was coming from. "Not...not much...some...I mean, she 
has told me that Buffy is some kind
of...hero...that she's saved the world...saved Sunnydale...and Willow 
several times...but she never really got into just what exactly that 
entailed."

"Oh...I see..." Giles hesitated, removing his glasses and rubbing at them 
with a dry handkerchief while Sheila continued to stare at him, her 
expression pure confusion mixed with a hint of anger. "To put it 
simply...Buffy...hunts..."

"So...what you're suggesting is that...someone, or some...thing...is behind 
this whole thing...and that is who Buffy is looking for?" Sheila 
interrupted, not sure if she was really following the whole conversation, 
and half of her not sure that she wanted to be in the first place.

"Something like that...yes." Giles said, with a sigh...glad that the worst 
part appeared to be over.

"Oh." She sank weightlessly into her chair, unable to remain standing any 
longer. Confusion made her dizzy, and questions warred with answers in her 
brain. Who were these people that were attacking her daughter? Why would 
they want to do that? And how were they managing to do it in the first 
place? Even with what Mr. Giles had said, she still wasn't sure it all 
added up. She could feel their eyes on her, burning her with their 
sympathy. She knew they only wanted to help, but even with all the 
questions running rampant in her brain, she wasn't sure she was up to any 
more explanations.

What frightened her most was the how part of the whole thing...how were they 
able to make her daughter sick? Glancing down over her daughters body, 
ignoring the hurt that seeing her in such a condition caused, her mind 
tripped around for answers. She was a trained professional, used to dealing 
with all the problems the mind had to throw at you...she should be able to 
figure this out. An answer swirled around in her brain, treading lightly 
through her subconcious, and she found her conscious mind wanting to shove 
it back...it being too big, too hard to believe for her to want to 
accept...but she found she had no choice as her eyes came to rest on the 
very pronounced swelling at her daughter's abdomen.

'Magic?' Was it possible? She wasn't even sure that she believed in magic, 
and yet if she was going to believe her daughter's claim, magic already took 
a huge precedence in her daughter's life. And if magic...good magic could 
create something so rare, so wonderful
as a baby's life...then...and this was the thought her mind tripped away 
from the most...couldn't dark magic try to take it away? And if that was 
the case...if it was magic...how was Buffy going to fight something like 
that?

*****

The corridors were busy with life, nurses running here and there, on their 
way to some form of emergency or another. The Slayer didn't pay much 
attention to it, just noticing the positions of the people walking around 
her so that she didn't run into them. There was only one destination she 
wanted to be...one face she wanted to see...just to make sure...just to make 
sure that person was still there.

The door to Willow's hospital room was shut, but that didn't strike her as 
odd, until she pushed it open and heard the murmured voices echo into the 
hall. It didn't take her long to figure out who the voices belonged to, 
readily picking up the subtle tones of her Watcher,
the excited, but hushed voice from Xander, and the almost hysterical tone 
coming from Sheila Rosenberg. Pausing just outside the door, she quirked 
her head, listening in to the conversation.

"Why her? Why Willow? Why would they attack her? If Buffy is the one they 
wanted..." Buffy closed her eyes, leaned her head against the door and 
drowned the rest of the question out. 'It should have been me.' Buffy 
agreed silently, as the questions served to increase the guilt she was 
feeling.

"I don't know...there are...many reasons..." Giles tried to answer, but 
even from Buffy's position, she could hear the uncertainty in his voice.

"Isn't it obvious?" Xander asked, scorn rich in his voice.

"What better way to hurt Buffy than to attack Willow?" Anya agreed.

"What they don't know..." Xander continued, pride entering his voice. "Is 
when you attack Willow or any one of the Scoobs...Buffy becomes a one 
man...err...one woman...fighting machine. She won't stop until that person 
pays for it...heavily."

"What if she doesn't succeed? What if she...can't find whoever is behind 
this? What happens to Willow then?" She heard Sheila Rosenberg asking, the 
woman's voice sounding frail and shaky. "Will she...?" The voice halted 
abruptly, as Buffy entered the room, her eyes blazing as she glared at the 
pasty looking woman.

"I won't let that happen." Buffy answered tightly, staring straight into 
Sheila's Rosenberg's eyes. "You can count on that."

The room stilled to an astonishing silence as all eyes fell on the set-faced 
Slayer. Buffy glanced around quickly, her eyes taking inventory of the 
group assembled in an abstract manner, before they unerringly found the 
shape and form of her wife. It wasn't intended or even really planned, but 
when she saw the figure in the bed, she couldn't help but stop and stare, 
letting her eyes fill their full. Unconsciously she moved, gravitating, 
almost against her will, towards the metal framed hospital bed. She came to 
a standstill beside it.

Looking down, she gently traced a path across her wife's slick forehead, 
ignoring the wet sweat that clung to her fingertips as she moved them down 
tenderly over a freckled cheek, then paused to outline slightly open, fever 
dried lips. Bending over, she touched her wife's
forehead with her own. Willow's raspy breaths filled her ears. She kissed 
one pale cheek, then paused to whisper in her ear. "I'll find them, Will...I 
promise."

Seeing Buffy enter, all emotion gone...no, not just gone really, but 
nonexistent had been a real eye opener for Joyce. She'd wondered how her 
daughter was coping with all of this, how her daughter was managing to stand 
up against all of this misery that had suddenly, and unexpectedly been 
dropped on her. Now she knew. Her daughter wasn't dealing with it at all. 
Buffy was trying very hard to shut off all emotions, to ignore the hurt that 
must be tearing her up inside. Joyce had only seen her look this way once 
before. The night when she had found out her daughter's secret, the night 
her daughter had gone after Angel, fully intending to kill him. 
'Funny...Willow had been in a coma then too.' Joyce thought abstractly.

It wasn't until Buffy's eyes locked onto Willow that any emotion showed on 
her face, and then the emotions were too fluid...too quickly moving to catch 
them all, but Joyce thought she saw worry, regret, fear, love and a bunch of 
others flash over her child's face before Buffy was crossing the distance 
standing between her and the redhead, and reaching out to touch her wife's 
face.

The tender way Buffy caressed Willow's cheek, brought a lump of emotion to 
her own throat. She didn't know what she would do if Willow died. She 
didn't know how she would help Buffy to cope with it. She hated to think 
negatively, Willow and Buffy had been through so much together, that to do 
that, was like showing a lack of faith in her daughter, but she also dreaded 
the occurance. Dreaded what it would do to Buffy. Joyce wasn't sure that 
Buffy could survive it, and if she did, she wasn't sure how much of her 
daughter would be left behind.

"Buffy?" Joyce almost regretted speaking, when the blue eyes lifted to 
stare at her. For a second she could see the depths of the misery Buffy was 
swimming in, but then they shaded over, emotions going back into hiding, as 
the Slayer stared back at her nonchalently. Joyce searched for something to 
say, something that could possibly make it
better, but there was nothing that she could say so she settled for just 
being motherly. "Buffy...you're soaked."

"I'm fine, Mom." Buffy said, her voice a monotone, and Joyce had to hide a 
shudder.

"Bu-" Joyce started to protest, but Buffy didn't let her finish.

"I said...I'm fine." Buffy said again, her eyes turning glacial.

Joyce stared deeply into them, steadying herself against their cold weight. 
And still, she did not like what she saw. 'Oh no...my daughter...you are 
definitely not...fine.' It seemed like their staring match could go on 
forever, but then Buffy blinked, seeming to come back into herself and she 
turned her attention away. 'Dismissed.' Joyce thought, a strange ache 
filling her heart. 'I've been summarily dismissed by my own daughter.'

Buffy turned her attention towards her Watcher, forcing out all other 
distractions. "Giles, research mode. I need all the information you have 
about past Slayers going up against witches." Buffy paced closer, then 
stood before him, her arms crossed in front of her chest. The position 
appeared natural, but Giles could tell Buffy was using it as a form of 
protection. A way to keep the overwhelming emotions at bay.

"Anything in particular?" Giles asked, watching the Slayer narrowly. Of 
course, he could break out the books, as she so liked to call it, search out 
information, but it would be nice if he knew where to start.

"A way to break this spell would be nice." Buffy growled, running a hand 
through her long blond hair, the only sign of nervousness that she had 
exhibited so far. "But I would settle for a protection spell. Some way to 
keep them from harming her anymore."

Giles nodded, fiddling nervously with his glasses. "I'll look, of 
course...I'm sure I can come up with...something." Giles said, not at all 
sounding as sure of himself as Buffy had hoped he would.

"But?" Buffy asked, sensing the hesitation in Giles voice.

"But...whoever cast that spell...it's very powerful, Buffy. I'm not sure 
that I...well, it would be easier if we had a real witch to counter them 
with."

"Well...I wish we had a real witch too, Giles...but she's a little busy at 
the moment!" Buffy growled. "We'll just have to do the best we can."

"Um...excuse me." A quiet voice spoke up from the half open doorway. "I 
don't mean to interrupt, but...m-maybe I can h-help."


...to be continued.:-)


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