Buffy The Vampire Slayer > BTVS - Alternate Universe
God Save the Queen by SRoni [Reviews - 1]	<< ChaptersStory Index1. Chapter 12. Chapter 23. Chapter 3

Chapter III

Hubcaps spun away from the squalling tires as Cordelia muscled her convertible to a shuddering stop in front of the emergency room doors. The Sunnydale ER staff was probably the best in the world at dealing with traumatic exsanguination, and they were in motion almost before the car stopped.The emergency technicians lifted Buffy onto a gurney and started prepping her for the transfusion she needed,while a crop-haired young woman in floral-patterned scrubs clamped the lacerated artery so that the blood Buffy received wouldn’t just come back out.

Cordelia caught the fragment of a comment about there being a lot more business tonight than usual, and automatically she knew that meant the rest of the Slay Friends were already at the hospital. She left Willow and Xander to answer questions about Buffy until Joyce could arrive, And went looking for the others.

She found Owen first. She was originally stopped for not being a family member, but she started sobbing that he was her fiancŽe and they’d had a big fight … The intern she was dealing with correctly decided that it would be easier to let just her see him. Owen was bruised and barely conscious, so she didn’t stay long. It was enough to know that he wouldn’t suffer permanent damage.

She found Giles’ room, and again the staff wouldn’t let her in. This time she claimed to be his niece. The nurse went in with her to answer questions. Giles was unconscious and hooked up to too many tdifferent things for Cordelia to feel comfortable. “Is he gonna be okay?”

“He has several broken ribs, and he suffered injuries to a thoracic vertebrae.” The nurse was matter-of-fact.

“Will he be paralyzed?” She didn’t realize she was chewing on her lip until she tasted blood.

“We don’t know. We’ll have to wait and see … but with an injury like this, he has a thirty per cent chance of paralysis in the legs.”

The two left the room, with Cordelia wanting to scream or cry or beat the crap out of something. She stifled the urge, and found Oz’s room. He was awake. And talkative. (Must have been the pain meds.) After assuring him that Willow was safe — and would no doubt be in as soon as she figured out where he was — Cordelia managed to find out what had happened at the library.

It was her fault. She had known it would be, known it as soon as Angel made his little crack about “elsewhere”. They had all wanted to be ready at the factory … but she had overruled that. The factory was just a guess, even with Marcy’s help, that, yes, somebody was there, they didn’t know that that was where they would be kept, so they needed to be ready, when Angel phoned in, to go to whatever location he gave to them. So they had all been waiting at the library (that was the number Angel always used when he called, she guessed to rub their noses in the memory of days when he’d been one of them, and welcomed as part of the group that gathered there) when Buffy’s message came in, and were just about to leave for the rescue of Buffy and Willow, when Spike and ten other vampires burst through the double doors and started doing as much damage as possible, as fast as possible. Another minute or so, and they could have caught the group outside, in the open; as it was, Giles shouted for Tucker and Nancy to cover from the cage with crossbows, and for Owen and Oz to work around book cases. Desperate tactics, but somehow they made it work, dusting six of the invadors before Spike kicked Giles into a book shelf about ten feet away, and suddenly everything fell apart. Oz got bounced off the floor a couple of times (and had a broken arm and several cracked ribs to show for it), Owen was buried underneath a toppled bookcase, and Nancy ran out of the cage and staked two vampires from behind before a third one snapped her neck. Tucker killed the two who were trying to break into the cage, staking one through the bars with a broken crosssbow and flinging their entire supply of holy water on the other. Marcy was doing whatever she could to subtly help people, without advertising the fact that there was an invisible entity there. Spike could have finished them all off then … but instead he looked around suddenly, shouted something about his dark princess, and took off. Tucker called for an ambulance, then told Oz that he quit, and he was gone before the ambulance arrived.

“How are they, anyway? I don’t know what happened to them after we got loaded up.” Every time she let herself see the white cast on his arm, she winced, so she payed attention to his face, and only to his face.

“Owen is fine, he just has another concussion, he and Xander apparently are in a contest over who can get the most. Every time either are in a fight, one of them gets a visit to the hospital. They’ve had more concussions than the average football player. Giles … he’s going to live. He has some broken ribs, and a damaged vertebrae and he has a 30% chance of not being able to use his legs.”

“How does Buffy feel about the chance of Giles being paralyzed?” The drugs were starting to make him tired, she’d have to leave soon.

“She doesn’t know yet. Xander and Willow are with her right now, she lost a lot of blood and stopped breathing.” She dropped her gaze from his face, and stared at her hands.

“Is she going to be okay?” He was making an effort to stay awake, but his eyelids were drooping.

“I don’t know. Xander tried CPR and I didn’t handle it very well. I was trying to tell him it wouldn’t do any good, she didn’t have enough blood to carry the oxygen, and we had to get her to proffesional treatment, but all I could say was ‘No time’. If she dies, he’s going to blame me.” Tears pricked at her eyes.

“You could have handled that better.”

“Don’t I know it. Listen, I gotta go check on Buffy, I don’t know anything that’s going on with her.”

He didn’t blame her. She could see that on his face, it was too open right now for him to try to hide anything. He was the only one.

“Later.” She knew that he’d be asleep in five minutes.

She found Willow and Xander in the ER waiting room and reported on what happened in the library. Willow started crying; no one had really liked Nancy — except Tucker — but she had still been one of them. Xander didn’t show any reaction, except to move closer to Willow.

“How’s Buffy?”

“Still unconscious. They said that they don’t know if she’ll wake up. They don’t have a lot of hope for her.” Willow answered, her voice showing the tears that had just left.

“What? Never?” Cordelia’s mind was reeling. “That, that’s not possible.”

“It’s possible.” Xander’s voice was harsh, and his eyes were cold enough to freeze her blood. “It’s possible, because of you.”

“Xander, please.” She was too close to begging; she never begged.

“No. If you hadn’t done the big nasty with Angel, then she wouldn’t be hooked up to tubes, she would be home, or at the Library, or with me, smiling and laughing, but she’s not, and it’s your fault. Don’t tell me to be nice, because I have had it up to here with your Miss-high-and-mighty routine, that you’re the Slayer, and we should just bow down and worship you, and be thankful that you’re helping at all. Well, Buffy was better then you are, and you can’t live with that, and now you had to put her in danger, so that you could be the better Slayer, because Buffy went and got herself killed, that’s what you wanted to happen, isn’t it? Isn’t it?!”

Willow stood up and stepped between them. “Xander, enough. We may not like Cordelia that much, it may or may not be for logical reasons, but we both know that she wouldn’t have tried to have Buffy killed. She didn’t let Angelus loose on purpose, and she’ll try to kill him the first chance she —”

She broke off suddenly; Xander saw the hesitation, somehow intuited the meaning, and pounced. “You had a chance, and you didn’t take it? Why didn’t you take it?”

Cordelia was almost in tears by then, she’d been going too long, and she was getting ready to snap. “If I killed him then, I couldn’t have gotten to Buffy in time.”

“You didn’t get to her in time, anyway.”

“You wouldn’t be here if we hadn’t left right then.” She wasn’t defending herself. She wasn’t. The queen never defends herself.

“So? Like it would have made that much of a difference, we were still alive, weren’t we?” He was verbally attacking her over Willow’s shoulder.

“Only because Drusilla was playing cat-and-mouse with you.” She was ready to scream! “Drusilla didn’t want you dead yet, she wanted you to watch Buffy die, and not be able to stop it. She wasn’t trying to kill you yet; if she had been, you wouldn’t have lasted five minutes. She was jerking your strings, and you were dancing.”

“You shouldn’t have put Buffy in danger.” God, he was stubborn!

“The only alternative was for you or Willow to die. If I had tried to save you, it would have been you. That’s the kind of trick Angel does. Would you have let me sentence one of you? No? Didn’t think so. When you go through what I go through every day, then you can jump all over me. Until then, keep your feet on the ground.” She had to leave before she killed somebody … actually, that sounded good. “I’m going patrolling, call me if there’s any change in anybody.”

“Now you’re bailing? Jeez, Cordy, we can’t count on you for anything.” Xander was just begging for her to hit him. Can’t give in, can’t-give-in, cantgivein … The urge passed.

“Call me.”

*                              *                              *

They spent the next two days taking shifts at the hospital, waiting for Giles to wake up while Xander stayed with Buffy all through visiting hours. While she wasn’t on shift, she got the call she’d been expecting.

“Cordy, Giles woke up.”

“Thanks, Oz. How mad is he?”

“Not mad. Depressed. We haven’t told him about Buffy yet, we figured that would be better with everyone here.”

“Smart. I’ll be there in ten.”

“That long?”

“I got a speeding ticket, and I don’t feel like getting another.”

“Understandable.”

“Bye.” Click. Giles awake. Thank God. He’d blame her for what had happened, maybe not out loud, but he’d still blame her. She should have been there, should have been with Buffy, shouldn’t have done this, shouldn’t have done that, and most definitely shouldn’t have done the hanky-panky with Angel.

She could deal with it, if it meant that he’d be okay. Even if he wasn’t a hundred percent, if he was able to think, talk, research and breathe on his own, that would be good enough for her.

He was still in his room, with all the Slay Friends gathered around, but … hewas in a wheelchair. Cordy had to deal with shock at the sight; she’d been prepared for it, but darn it, she just wasn’t ready. Willow and Oz were sitting as close together as they could without her being in his lap, and Xander looked like crap. Owen was in a chair next to the curtain, where she saw a crease in it fold and refold; not the kind of thing that jumps out at you, but when you deal with an invisible person, you tend to notice those things.

Cordelia nodded a greeting towards the curtains, then spoke. “Hi, Giles.” The words barely hit Cordelia’s own ears, so soft did she speak. But he managed to hear them, and he turned his head.

“Cordelia. Where’s Buffy?”

She stammered a bit. “Uh … she’s … she’s …”

Willow jumped to her rescue. Of a sort. “She’s already here.”

“She is? Why hasn’t she come to visit yet?”

Xander spoke up. “Because Cordelia risked Buffy’s life, and now Buffy is comatose.”

Willow glared at him, Cordelia stared and Oz muttered, “Smooth, man. Great way to tell him.”

“Is this true?” Giles pointed the question at Cordelia.

She nodded miserably. “I didn’t mean to, Giles. I just didn’t think about all that Angel would do. I thought that it would be Buffy and Willow, not Buffy and Xander.”

“Why should that have made a difference?” Giles wanted to know.

“Because Buffy trained with Willow right after she got here, then after the whole Master thing happened, she and Willow kept up the training. They each know how the other moves and fights. The two of them had a chance of taking on Drusilla.”

She could look around and read people’s expressions, even if they were guarded. Xander had condemnation of the worst kind. He would not listen to reason, and didn’t want her to even attempt it. What he was feeling for her at the moment was barely short of hatred. Willow wasn’t condemning at all, she and Cordelia still wouldn’t be close, this and other things had driven too many wedges that were too big between them, but she would still be supportive in a lot of ways. Doubt was there. It hadn’t been there before, and now it was. Oz would stand by Willow. No matter what, he would stick with Willow. She couldn’t and wouldn’t fault him for that. He would be the closest to a confidant that she would get. Owen still didn’t really know what happened. He and Buffy hadn’t been that close; Buffy, Willow and Xander had been the modern day three musketeers, and the others were fringe. Tucker wasn’t there, he really had meant it when he said he quit. You can’t really see the expression of an invisi-girl, but Marcy and Cordelia had never been close. There was thinly veiled animosity from Marcy and always would be. One more thing she hadn’t done right. Giles. Giles was the worst. He was in a wheelchair because she hadn’t prepared. And he had just lost the closest thing he had to a daughter. No, she was his daughter. In every way that counted, they were father and daughter, and he had lost her in such an awful way. He would never give up hoping that Buffy would wake up, knowing that she wouldn’t. Giles had a terrible amount of grief that he might never be able to work out. And it was her fault it was there.

She would find a way to bring her back. Even if there was no way, she would find a way to bring Buffy back.

She had to.

She was the queen.

 END

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

[ So, that’s it! Hope you liked it. Read Aadler’s “Each Proud Division” (here at FFN) to see more of this Cordelia … and yes, a sequel is on the drawing board! ]

All stories on this site have been archived with the authors' consent. Do not copy these stories for your own uses without the express consent of the author themselves. Buffy the Vampire Slayer TM and Angel TM are © UPN, WB, Fox and its related entities. All photos on the site are © UPN, Fox, Warner Bros, and/or their respective owners. No profits are being made by use of these images.