Big Sister: Waiting Room
by MissEdith
Oz paced the length of the room in Angel’s mansion. Maybe it was his inner beast, but he had a bad feeling about this. He didn’t think Buffy was going to get Faith’s blood, and he didn’t like to think about the consequences if she did. For lack of anything better to do, he picked up one of the spell books he and Willow had brought with them. He had been flipping through it for only a few minutes, when he paused and reread what he had just read. This could be good, he said to himself. He smelled Willow behind him, and immediately went to her.

“Any change?” he said.

She shook her head. “He’s delirious. He thought I was Buffy.”

Oz nodded. “You too, huh?” That had been a truly strange moment.

“I hope she gets here soon,” Willow went on. “She’d better if....”

“Yeah,” Oz said. They both knew what she meant.

“I feel so...I feel so guilty,” Willow confessed.

“Guilty?” Oz said, surprised and concerned.

Willow bit her lip anxiously. “Well, things are so terrible, and things are coming apart, but in some ways, this is the best night of my life.”

Oz blinked and reached for her hand with a half smile. “Us,” he whispered.

“Us,” Willow affirmed with a smile and a nod. Moving at the same time, they came together for a kiss. They jumped apart guiltily as the door opened.

“I just checked on him just now,” Willow said guiltily. “We’re watching.”

Giles did not respond, and Oz felt that bad feeling growing.

“What is it?” Willow said, frowning worriedly. “Did you hear from Buffy?”

Giles gulped. “We must go to the hospital. Buffy is...is there.”

Willow inhaled sharply, and barely noticed Oz’s arm wrapped around her middle.

“Come on,” he said gently.

She did not pay attention when he led her after Giles, who had left the room. She moved like an automaton, and did not notice when Oz picked up a book from the table as they walked past.
~~~
Willow, Oz, Xander, and Cordelia sat in the uncomfortable hospital chairs as Giles conversed with the truck driver who had found the unconscious Slayer. Willow sniffled and looked down at Oz’s hand, which was wrapped around her own. Sighing, she placed her head on his shoulder, and he pressed a kiss into her hair.

Xander watched Willow and Oz with a bit of jealousy. Not in the sense of him having romantic feelings for Willow–or Oz, for that matter–but in the sense of him being jealous that they had each other, and he did not. There was Cordy, but really he didn’t have her. Willow and Oz were in love; even he could see that. He was truly happy for Willow that she had found someone who loved her like that. But still he found himself longing for the old days when it was just him and Willow, then them and Buffy. Back then, he and Willow could hug and comfort each other without romance or jealousy or any of that. Xander snorted and looked down at his hands which hung limply between his knees. He was tired, lonely, and useless; one of his best friends may be dying, and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.

“Thank you very much,” Giles said to the truck driver. “She, um, she is beloved to all of us and we are very grateful for your help.” Giles attempted to smile, and failed miserably.

“It was nothing,” he said gruffly. “Just, uh, hope she’s okay. Good luck to you all.” Jim waved at the subdued Scoobies and walked out of the hospital, head bowed.

Giles approached the four teenagers and began to clean his glasses. “That man, uh, Jim, saw her fall from a balcony. It must have been outside Faith’s apartment.”

Xander looked at his hands guiltily. He knew it was stupid to blame himself, but he couldn’t help thinking that this wouldn’t be happening if he had convinced her not to go. He glanced over at Willow, and he could tell that she was feeling the same way. Cordelia was oddly quiet; for once, she had no idea what to say. If they had been thinking about it, they would have been shocked by her surprising display of tact.

“Is she...is she gonna be okay?” Willow asked in a small voice.

Xander didn’t envy Giles at all. He knew that the older man was feeling just as bad as they were, if not worse. But he had to hold together; he had to be the grown-up. No, Xander thought as he looked at Giles for an answer, I definitely do not envy him.

“The doctors are still...working on her. From the little information I managed to garner from the nurses, she has several broken bones, including a fractured skull, some head trauma, and possibly internal bleeding.”

“But she’s got that Slayer healing, right?” Cordelia said.

“Yeah,” Willow said, attempting to convince herself, “yeah, she’ll be alright.”
~~~
“Rupert Giles?” a nurse called, stepping into the center of the waiting room.

Giles almost leapt to his feet. “Yes?”

“You are acting legal guardian of...” the nurse consulted his sheet, “...Buffy Summers?”

Giles nodded.

“He is?” Xander whispered to Willow and Oz.

“With her parents unreachable, I guess he counts since he was on her contact list,” Willow whispered back.

They both looked up as Giles and the nurse approached them.

“The doctors have stabilized Miss Summers. You may visit her now. The doctors will tell you more about her condition.”
~~~
“Buffy?” Angel whispered through the haze of pain. He didn’t quite understand where he was, what was going on, but he thought he was dying.

“Angel?” she whispered.

He could just barely make out her form. He wasn’t sure if it was his sickness that was making her shimmer that way. She seemed almost ghostly.

“I didn’t want to go without seeing you.”

“Angel, I can cure you.”

“It’s okay,” he whispered, “I’m ready.”

“Angel, listen to me. Sit up.” She grasped him by the shoulders. “You’re not going to die.”

“What way?”

“Drink.”

Angel gasped, and tried to pull away from her. Abruptly, she was gone. He sank back into a feverish sleep full of nightmares in which his love lay bleeding and unconscious.
~~~
“The bones are set, and the internal bleeding is reparable,” the doctor told the Scoobies, who were having difficulty concentrating on his words. But they needed to know this. “But the head trauma, it’s...well it’s simply too severe. You know, it’s a wonder she’s alive at all, with the fall and the blood loss. I am sorry, but there is almost no chance at all that she is ever going to regain consciousness.”

All Willow could think was that the doctor was wrong; he had to be wrong. The doctor didn’t know Buffy was the Slayer. He couldn’t know how quickly he would heal. Yet even as she was thinking these optimistic thoughts, she couldn’t help the overwhelming when she looked at her comatose friend. Her face was horribly bruised, and her skull was bandaged, as were an arm and a leg. She wasn’t on a breathing tube, for which Willow was extremely grateful. She didn’t think she could handle seeing her friend lying there, lifeless, with a tube stuffed down her throat as a visible reminder of the fact that she was clinging to life by a few tubes and machines.

Willow was saved from her downward-spiraling thoughts by Giles, who cleared his throat loudly to get their attention. As the doctor went to work on some paperwork, they huddled together and spoke in hushed tones.

“I fear that we must put aside our own grief,” Giles said, taking a deep breath, “and examine the larger picture. The Ascension is hours away, and we have no Slayer.”

“Yeah,” Cordy said, “everything pretty much sucks right now.”

“I have an idea,” Xander said, “for killing the Mayor.”

“Oh great, that’s comforting,” Cordy said snidely.

“We have another girl with severe blood loss,” a nurse was saying to the doctor in the background. “Doctor Pal wants you to practice an anti-cubal [??]cut down.”

“I’ll be right there,” the doctor said as he walked past them.

Giles once again began to clean his glasses. “Perhaps we would be better off discussing this matter in a more private place.”

“What are we going to do about Angel?” Willow asked despondently as she began to walk away from Buffy.

Xander shrugged. “She almost died trying to save him. And it’s not like he was going to stick around anyway.”

“Xander,” Willow said with a hint of anger in her voice, “he’s saved a lot of people’s lives, and Buffy...she would have wanted us to save him.”

“Uh, guys?” Oz said. He was standing at the entrance to the next room over, brandishing the book he had brought from the mansion. The others went to join him, and they saw the Mayor sitting in a chair by the bed of an unconscious Faith. “I think I may have found something that’ll help with Angel.”
~~~
TBC

A/N: I’m not wild about this chapter, a lot of it was stuff that I had to get out of the way plot-wise, but at least now it’s done. So, what do you think? Good, bad, mediocre? Let me know! Oh, and lots of lines were "borrowed" from Graduation Day Pt2 (If anyone knows what the nurse says with that anti-something cut down, please let me know).

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