Archive of Our Own

The house was eerily quiet, save for a few scattered sniffles. Everyone had run out of questions and speculations after the first hour, and no one felt like moving while the Winchesters were out dealing with Annabelle’s body. No one wanted to know what dealing with meant.

Buffy sat on the steps mulling over the word they’d scrubbed from the door. Brothers. It wasn’t enough for The First – there was no doubt about what had wrapped the girl up in a bloody bow – to go after the Potentials. Now it wanted Dean and Sam too.

It would have to go through her first.

The back door banged, causing a couple girls to yip in surprise. But it was only the Winchesters returning from their gruesome task. Molly rushed to them for hugs. The crying started anew. Cloé, at barely fifteen the youngest Potential, clung to Giles’ jacket as he passed her tissues. Her eyes red and swollen.

Dean stared at Buffy over the crowd, trying to read her face. No doubt, he wanted to take her away from all of this. Clean up the mess on his own. But this death was her weight to bear, and the Potentials needed to know she was in charge.

Buffy stood and waited for the silence, all eyes on her. “Does this seem serious to you now? In here, you live. Out there, you die. I don’t care if you don’t like me or if you just want to see your family again. Leaving gets you killed.” She wasn’t numb to their fears and pains, but she couldn’t be their big sister either.

Her eyes landed on Grace, looking serene in the sea of tears. “Grace, raise your hand. You all see her? Talk to her about everything that’s going on in your heads right now. Revenge, fear, hatred, boys. I don’t care. Just get it out. Grace, I want an anonymous report later about the state of the group.”

She turned to her sister, calmly slumped against the door with the blank expression of someone who had already seen too much. “Dawn, call the rest of the Scoobies. I want to know everything you found last night. Then help Willow put up protection spells, okay?”

“Protection against what?”

“Everything. Go.”

A murmur waved through the girls. Via a series of head nods and pointed glares, they settled on Dani, the oldest and most experienced Potential after Annabelle, as their collective voice.

“Are we really safe here?” she asked.

Buffy took a moment to gather herself and replied calmly, “Something calling itself The First Evil is trying to kill us all. Safe is relative at the moment. Now, I need you all to either eat or get some sleep. You’re no good to me tired and hungry.”

“Coffee for everyone!” Andrew, be-aproned and carrying a tray of full mugs, sugar, and cream, invited himself into Buffy’s bedroom where the Scoobies were discussing the night’s events.

Giles, running on only a few hours of sleep, shot Buffy a quizzical look.

She whispered, “He wanted to help. I told him to keep the coffee coming.” As the sun wasn’t set to rise for at least another hour, this wasn’t a bad use of their hostage.

“What I don’t understand,” said Xander, taking a mug, “is why this thing went to the effort of bringing Annabelle’s body back. Clearly, It’s not feeling shy, but why not break in like last time?”

“Maybe the crazy graffiti is working?” Willow suggested with a yawn.

Giles latched on to different questions as he watched the Winchesters. Why do both angels and the First Evil find them significant? Why would they know any special symbols for warding off demons if they didn’t find themselves constantly besieged? Was the bloody word Brothers a threat or a request?

He started when he felt a poke in the ribs. “Normally, you’re chomping at the bit to correct research errors,” said Buffy.

“I’m sorry, you’ll have to repeat yourselves for my sleep-addled brain.” To prove his point, he prepared himself some coffee from the tray on the dressing table.

“We were telling Buffy about how the Bringers are bad gardeners.”

Giles rubbed his eyes, appalled that was all the boys could remember. “They’re not gardeners; they are cursed. Wherever they go, plants die.”

“Good thing this isn’t a town with large slabs of concrete everywhere,” droned Anya, stretched out on the bed.

“Yes. No. I mean, this is good,” said Buffy, pacing excitedly. “I saw something like that. A weird dead clump of trees–”

“Outside of my office,” said Sam, locking eyes with Buffy. “They’ve planted new palm trees there twice this past month. They die almost immediately.”

“They’re under the school!” they said in sync.

“I thought the Hellmouth was under the school?” asked Dean.

Willow, blindly fighting for room on the bed, explained, “Well, yeah, but, like, way down. Sunnydale has been destroyed several times, so there’s miles of winding ruins forming man-made caves under the city. One of them runs right next to the high school.”

“Why can’t the mall be an evil lair for once; or a botanical garden?” Dawn complained.

“Okay, how is that even helpful, since it wasn’t a Bringer attack?” asked Anya.

“It was The First,” said Buffy, confidently. “Where the Bringers are, there’s The First. We still don’t know what killed Annabelle, but–”

“I do,” said Sam, looking at the pictures on Dean’s phone. “This is going to sound crazy to you, but this is a vampire bite.” Everyone stared at him.

Dean clarified, “Our kind of vampire, not yours. The goes-out-in-daylight-without-combusting, can’t-be-staked, laughs-at-crosses kind.”

“I don’t like your words,” said Xander.

“At least they don’t have superhuman strength,” Dean added.

“Better. That’s better.”

“It’s sending a different breed of vampires at us? Finally, something I can deal with,” said Buffy.

Neither brother asked how Buffy knew where to go in this series of caves, and she didn’t tell them about the evil anointed child who had lead her down into them, down to her first death at sixteen. The damp stench zapped her mind back to that night – her white gown accessorized with a crossbow, helpless in the Master’s grip, the tear of his teeth on her neck, the burn of drowning. She had killed the Master, of course. A little thing like death wasn’t going to stop her from saving the world. Now she was back to keep the Potentials in her home from becoming another series of nightmares.

As the cave turned from natural rocks to rubble of bricks and stone, they saw a flickering light around the corner. They flattened against the wall and listened. Two or three somethings were waiting for them.

Before Buffy could give them orders, Dean winked at her and turned around the corner, shotgun at his hip. He didn’t even get a shot off before something threw him against the wall with a crack and a sharp, painful breath.

Sam rushed to his brother’s side as Buffy protected his back. Illuminated in the torchlight stood a tall creature, his blood-stained mouth in sharp contrast to his white skin, his brow disfigured from his extreme age. He was flanked by two grey creatures with white, deep-set eyes; long, needle-like fangs and claws. They looked like uglier copies of the Master.

The creature grinned, flashing fang. “Oh good. You got my invitation, and you brought snacks. Who says manners are going out of style?”

The vampire guard-dogs rocked back and forth on their feet, but did not advance.

“The fuck?” Dean was holding his side and sucking air through his teeth. “Those are not our vamps.”

Buffy swallowed as her stomach tried to leap from her. She’d had this nightmare countless times, but she’d impaled the Master. She’d smashed his bones to dust. She griped her axe tighter. “I didn’t realize this was a costume party. Why don’t you show me your real face?”

“I would more than love to do that, but, alas, I’m short on volunteers. However, I could slip into something more comfortable.” The jagged wrinkles and red eyes of the Master’s face morphed to the soft brown eyes of Angel.

All of Buffy’s energy was in keeping her legs from becoming gelatin, when Dean blasted his shotgun at Angel’s visage.

Angel smoothed his black leather jacket with his hands, shaking his head in disappointment. “Dean, you know shooting me is pointless.” He signaled to his snarling vampiric goons. “Goodbye, lover.”

They moved faster than anything Buffy had ever seen. Before Dean could load another shot, one swung him against the wall. With a sickening crunch, Dean’s limp body fell to the ground.

Sam fired another blast. No effect.

“Protect him!” Buffy yelled, swinging her axe at the nearest vampire. It snapped the axe handle in half and slashed her arm. She plunged her broken handle into its chest, but it – it bounced off. The creature grabbed a fistful of her hair and launched her into the wall. Blood streamed from her scalp, and something shifted in her chest that shouldn’t be able to shift.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sam, bleeding and panting, trying to keep up with the whirlwind of the second vampire. It blocked every swing, the blades bouncing off of its gauntlets.

The vampire grabbed her arm, yanking it from the socket. Using her arm as a painful lever, she pivoted the vampire around her, bashing its head into the wall. With a large rock, she hit the dazed creature over and over until bone started to peek through its skin. It slumped against the wall, stunned, but still undead.

She jumped on the other vampire’s back and bashed it with the rock. “We gotta move, Sam!”

The monster bucked and clawed at her while Sam picked up his unconscious brother, running as fast as he could for the entrance. The vampire slammed Buffy into the wall. She dropped, rolled, picked up Sam’s abandoned shotgun, and shot the monster in the face before running after the Winchesters.

The cave walls narrowed as it turned back into sewer. The entrance, glowing with the first light of dawn, was only yards before them when Sam cried out and fell. The vampire she’d shot, its face still smoking, had knocked him down.

“Get Dean!” Sam shouted as the vampire tried to pin down his swinging fists.

Dean, still unconscious, had fallen face-first into the shallow water. Buffy picked him up and finished carrying him into the light. Behind her Sam was screaming. Already cut and bruised, now he was soaked in blood as the vampire swiped across his stomach, exposing organs. Buffy grabbed it by the collar and pulled it, twisting and slashing, outside where it burst into flames in the morning’s weak light.

She helped Sam out of the sewer, his hands the only thing keeping his insides in. He slid into the backseat with a cry and bandaged himself with a blanket. After fishing the keys from Dean’s pocket, Buffy lifted Dean into the passenger side, moved the bench seat up, and jammed the keys into the ignition.  

Rush hour traffic was just starting, but Buffy ignored stop signs and jumped red lights, the big car fishtailing as she sped around corners. Her arms coated with blood, making the steering wheel sticky. Whatever was moving in her chest made it hard to breathe. The edges of her vision were starting to go black as she spied the hospital. Her hands slipped off the wheel, and they crashed.

Buffy came to in a hospital room with Giles and Dawn hovering over her bed.

“Thank God!” her sister squealed, squeezing her foot.

Buffy tried to sit up, but it felt like a death metal concert was trying to mosh out of her ribs. She tried to speak, but her throat was dry and raw.

Giles handed her a glass of water.

“Dean? Sam?” She croaked after a few sips.

“We need to focus on you right now,” he said, setting the glass back on her night stand. “The last time you scared me this badly, I had to bury you.”

“Ta-da! Alive!” She tried to wave jazz hands, but her shoulder screamed at her. “What’s my damage?”

“Three broken ribs, a cracked sternum, a cracked vertebra, a black eye, a split lip, a dislocated shoulder, and over twenty stitches for the various lacerations. The one on your neck almost nicked an artery.”

“Pretty. Do you think a nice red lipstick would draw attention from the bruises?”

Dawn burst into tears. “You almost died! I can’t lose you again.”

“I’m sorry for the scare fest, but I’m okay, or I will be in a few days. Dean and Sam? They were worse off than me.” With a great amount of searing pain, she managed to push herself up. “If you don’t tell me where they are, I’m going to start roaming the halls.”

“Sam is in surgery. Dean is in intensive care.” His voice was too steady, like he’d rehearsed. Giles was hiding something, and if what he wasn’t hiding was intensive care…

“Then get a wheelchair and take me to intensive care.”

Despite the fact that they were in a hallway and easily overheard, Giles asked her for details on the fight.

“There were two of them. They kinda looked like vampires, but ancient ones, more like the Master than anything. God, they were so fast. Dean was knocked out immediately. I killed one in the sunlight, but nothing else was stopping them.”

“So we keep the sun up all the time. Totally easy. Why didn’t we think of that before?” said Dawn.

When the elevator dinged for the intensive care floor, Giles said, “Buffy, the Winchesters’ injuries were rather severe.”

“I know. I was there.” They were alive. That’s what mattered. But when they rolled her into Dean’s room, a cry caught in her throat.

Dean was connected to a large machine by a tube down his throat. It whirred and whooshed, his lungs expanding and contracting with it. X-rays of his broken ankle and his rib cage hung on a lightbox on the wall. She barely registered the fractured ribs through the bizarre carvings etched in his bones.

“Did he ever mention this?” Giles asked, pointing at the x-rays.

She ignored him, ignored the fire in her arms, the hot poker in her shoulder, the sharpness in her chest. Using every bit of strength she could muster, she crawled into bed beside Dean. He was cold, not surprising given his thin hospital blanket and even thinner gown. At least she had her bathrobe from home thanks to Dawn. She could feel monitors and electrodes taped to his chest, feeding numbers to the monitors by his bed.

“Hi, Baby. I’m here. Your Girly is here,” she cried into his shoulder.

“Buffy–” Giles started, but she didn’t want to hear it.

“Please…” She had nothing but pleading. The First had been pressing on them for a week. Triggering then abducting Spike. Attacking Dawn. Trying to kill Willow then blinding her. Her house was full of strangers she couldn’t save, and the person she trusted most to have her back was unconscious. “Please.”

“We’ll be in the waiting room.”

“Dean? Baby?” but he did not respond. “We never really talked about your dream, the one where we have our own place and a little girl. I mean, we talked about it. I told you it couldn’t happen, but I didn’t tell you I want it too. I dream about having our own place. Dawn off at college, you and me, snug in our home far away from Sunnydale and all its ghosts.

“I think about that little girl sometimes. Imagine us chasing her through the house, laughing. I imagine her helping you work on your car and snuggling between us as we read to her. Building blanket forts on rainy days. Her giggles fill the place.

“Sometimes I imagine a son, with freckles like his daddy, and even in my head he’s trouble. He’s a handful, but he’s ours. You’d be a great father, Dean.”

She swallowed the lump in her throat and focused on the faint rhythm of his heart instead of the children they could never have. The machines continued their atonal symphony.

“I don’t even remember what the last thing was I said to you. It was probably something dutiful like ‘Gimme the axe’ or ‘Turn left.’ It should have been ‘I love you.’ I know it freaks you out, and you don’t like romance, but I can’t think of the future anymore without you in it. I love you so much it hurts, and I’m going to start telling you everyday.”    

Dean did not respond.

Dawn tossed a magazine back on the table in the waiting room, picking up another to flip through too fast to actually be reading. “I’ve never seen so much Golf Digest. This is not good crisis reading.”

Giles fished around in his pockets and found a five. “How about you run down to the cafeteria for some breakfast?”

“Thanks, but I’m not hungry.”

“Do me the favor then?” Dawn snatched the money and plodded toward the elevator. “Two creams in the coffee!” He fully expected her to return with donuts and soda, but the task was more important than the food.

In his lifetime of study, Giles had never seen marks like those on Dean’s ribs. Obviously, something had marked him, but what? Their story about being simple foot soldiers in the fight against evil didn’t hold water. Maybe it didn’t matter anymore.

Xander and Willow arrived. “Thank God, we worried when no one was in Buffy’s room.”

“It shouldn’t come as a shock that she wanted to see Dean. She’s in his room now.”

“So he’s awake?”

“No.”

“Sam?”

“Still in surgery.”

Xander and Willow sunk into the grey chairs.

It slowly dawned on Giles that Willow looked different. “No bandages, I see. Have the doctors given you a clean bill of health?”

“Oh! Oh yeah. Today was the big eye checkup.”

“She could see the E and beyond!” Xander said.

“We were still here when you called,” Willow added. “Buffy hadn’t mentioned they were going out to hunt The First this morning.”

Xander shook his head. “Why didn’t she throw up the Bat Signal? Get the whole gang together?”

“I do not know, but much hangs in the balance.” Giles tried to form the words. He needed the practice before telling the Summerses. “The doctors are currently waiting on Sam. Once he’s out of surgery and clear of the anesthesia, they are going to fill him in on the full scope of Dean’s condition. It appears his head injury was so severe, the swelling has already done irreversible damage.”

Tears filled Willow’s eyes, and Xander covered his head with his hands. Giles barely knew Dean, but felt much the same.

“He is essentially brain dead, and they need family’s permission to remove him from life support.”

Dean didn’t smell like himself. The scent of old leather was washed away by terrible hospital soap. It unnerved Buffy, as did the tubes in his mouth. It’s making him better, she told herself. In a few days, he’d be up, making inappropriate jokes and smacking her ass.

“Maybe when you’re better, we could go away again?” Their Halloween trip to San Francisco had been the most fun she’d had in years. Dean had been so relaxed and open, sharing stories from his childhood, his hopes and dreams. “You promised me you’d take me around the country. You said I haven’t lived until I’ve had deep dish pizza in Chicago and pasties in Minnesota. I know money’s tight and everything is crazy, but maybe in the spring? You’ll need the time to fix your car anyway. I’m so, so sorry about that.”

“What are you doing in here, honey?” said a voice in the doorway. Turning to look would have hurt, so Buffy stayed still. “Are you the girl from the car accident?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, we need to get you back to your own bed so you can heal.”

“I want to stay here!” The tears came hot and fast. She couldn’t leave him like this.

The nurse tried to gently guide Buffy off the bed. “Say your goodbyes, okay?”

Goodbyes?! “No. No!” She clung to Dean’s arms. He had to know she was there.

An army of feet entered the room. She tried to push them off, but she was tired and broken. There was a sting in her neck, and everything went dark.

Someone far away was calling her name. “Buffy?” They may have been underwater. “Buffy?” But how could she hear them? “Buffy?”

She opened her eyes to see a blurry group of friends standing around her. She tried to wipe her eyes, but her wrists were tied to the bed.

The red blur started to fumble with the restraints. Willow said, “The nurses said you got violent when–”

“Dean.” She could hear someone crying. Dawn?

“None of us want to lose him, Buffy, but there’s nothing we can do,” said Giles.

“I don’t know,” said Xander. “You never did tell us how Dean and Sam beat death the last time.”

“What?”

“Buffy didn’t tell you? The First has Winchester costumes in both designs, because apparently they’ve died before.”

“It’s personal,” Buffy said. She rubbed her eyes, but everyone was still blurry. Her head felt thick and slow. She must have been drugged.     

“Personal or not, that’s pretty damn important!” Giles snapped. “They are not the nobodies they say they are if someone has brought them back from the dead.”

An idea struck her. Buffy slid off the bed, her feet cold the moment she hit the floor.

“Where are you going?”

“Is Sam out of surgery?”

“Yeah, he wanted to see you.”

“Then that’s where I’m going.”

Sam was purple with bruises, eyes hollow and distant.

Buffy reached for his hand; both of his wrists sprained and splinted. “Hey.”

“Hey. I was going to ask if anyone had told you about Dean, but you look miserable, so…”

“Dean’s died before. He told me about selling his soul for you.” Her words made him flinch. “What brought him back?”

“Angels.”

Her heart sank. Sunnydale was certainly not an angel-friendly zone.

“Look, Dean’s died in front of me over a hundred times. Every time was the worst time, and I’ll be damned if I let him die again today. Here’s what you need to do…”

This time, Buffy had Willow and Xander stand guard while she was in Dean’s room. She climbed on the bed and cradled Dean’s broken head in her hands. She had no idea what she was doing. She’d have more faith in a spell, but Sam seemed confident this would work. Anything to save the man she loved.

Buffy, feeling like a desperate lunatic, closed her eyes. It seemed like the right first step. “Okay, um, Castiel, are you listening? My name is Buffy Summers. You probably have no idea who I am, but I know who you are. You’re Dean Winchester’s angel friend. I’m Dean’s friend, too.”

Was that such an understatement as to be a lie? If she lied while praying, would she be smited? She pushed the nagging voices out.

“Castiel, I’m with Dean now, and the doctors are saying he’ll die if we take him off life support. They said there was too much pressure on his brain.

“Sam told me Dean is important to you, and he’s important to me, too. Castiel, can you fix him? Can you please heal his head and bring him back to me?”

The machines forcing Dean to breathe continued to whir. Did she need to go through some sort of purifying ritual first?

“Castiel, please, I love Dean so much. I can’t lose him! I can’t picture my life without him. Please, heal him! Please!”

It started like a distant roll of thunder as Buffy’s hands grew warm. She kept her hands on Dean as the sound grew louder. By the time it screamed like a freight train in her ears, her skin felt like she was grabbing a firework. She opened her eyes to see a blue glowing light around Dean’s head like a halo.

Suddenly, the screeching stopped and the blue glow disappeared. She held her breath and watched.

Dean’s eyelids fluttered, and he slowly rocked his head. The monitors beside him started to beep and whine.

Buffy jumped off the bed as her friends and two nurses ran into the room.

Dean coughed and sputtered as they pulled the tube from his throat, muttering to themselves and shouting to each other.

“Heart rate’s strong. Blood pressure normal.”

“Someone get the doctor! He’s not going to believe this.”

“Get these people out of here!”

Again, someone grabbed Buffy’s shoulder, but she pushed them off. “Dean? Dean?!”

“Hey, Girly,” he croaked. “Hell of a day, huh?”