Disclaimer: Joss owns ‘em, I just play.

Author’s note: I’m ignoring cannon for Angel season four at this point. Cordelia is fine and not possessed. Thanks and huggles to Bloodytearsoflife who contributed a few excellent additions to this chapter.
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Chapter 16: Dawn’s plan

"We need to get her upstairs, to a bed," ordered Buffy immediately, picking up her unconscious sister. "Anya, see if you can scrounge up enough stuff to do a transfusion."

"Just because I can teleport, now I'm your personal shopper?" whined the demon.

"Please?" pleaded Buffy, her sister cradled in her arms.

"I'm going!"

With a puff of smoke Anya was gone, and the rest of the group turned their attention to Buffy, who was mounting the stairs with her sister easily held in her arms.

In a flash, Angel was ahead of her, guiding her to an empty room, where Dawn was set down on the bed. Tenderly Buffy brushed her sister’s hair back from her face. Dawn was paler than any vampire Buffy had ever seen; even paler than when Spike had show up at their door, half starved. A gentle hand touched her back, and Buffy turned to give her mate a pained smile, her own worry reflected in his eyes.

Had she been more perceptive, Buffy would have noticed the pained look that flashed across Angel’s face.

“Whoa, she looks like crap,” noted Cordelia, suddenly appearing at the bedside.

Buffy turned to look at Cordelia and noticed that everyone had followed up was in the room with them, filling the room to capacity.

“Can we get everyone who is not immediate family out of the room?” Buffy asked softly. “Oh, and Willow.”

There were a few that grumbled at Buffy’s order, Andrew and Angel in particular.

“But she’s my friend!” Andrew protested, attaching himself to Dawn’s hand. “She saved us!”

“Can someone tell me what’s going on? What’s wrong with Dawn?” asked Angel, his eyes darted from his grandchilde to his former girlfriend and her sister on the bed.

No one moved as Andrew continued to wail his protest about being removed from Dawn’s side.

“Get the bloody hell out!” shouted Spike, his eyes glittering amber.

With a start, and quite a few jumps, the room cleared of all those not immediately related to Dawn, all but Willow. Hank stood to the side of the room, not willing to leave, but not wanting to get in the way.

“Buffy will need a place to lie down,” Willow began, preparing for what was to come, and moving quickly about the room.

“Will she be alright?” asked a worried Hank, stepping forward and taking up the hand that Andrew had just recently held.

“Of course she’ll be okay,” responded Buffy in a positive voice, looking at her father from across the bed.

Despite Buffy’s happy voice, it was rather apparent that everyone else in the room was worried.

Dawn groaned from her sick bed, her eyes moving behind her eyelids.

“What is keeping Anya?” muttered Buffy anxiously, worry in her voice, cuddling into Spike‘s cool embrace.

“She’ll be back soon, luv,” whispered Spike into his mate’s hair. “She knows how important this is.”

“What if it’s not soon enough?” Buffy turned around in Spike’s arms. “I need to get bloody into Dawn, now. I’ve never seen her look this bad.”

“I know, luv.”

“When I get my hands on Graham Miller and his Initiative wannabes they are going to pay,” she seethed. “Permissive sister time is over and done with. It’s way past time to switch on the protective slayerness.”

There was another puff of smoke as Anya teleported in. “Back with sharp pointy things with which to bleed people,” she announced as she offered the objects in her arms.

Willow took the offered medical supplies with a glare. “Now’s really not the time to crack jokes, Anya,” the witch warned.

“It’s a thing I picked up from Xander. Sorry,” she said, truly apologetic. “I’ll leave now, the tension in here is very off putting. I’m going to go find Giles. He won‘t glare at me menacingly.”

“Anya?” asked Buffy, calling her demon friend back. “Thank you.”

“Get Dawn back all healthy, that’ll be thanks enough. Oh, and some severely beaten commandos would be nice too.” And with that Anya headed out of the door.

With a determined look, Buffy immediately laid down on the bed beside her sister, still holding her hand.

“Hook me up, Willow,” Buffy ordered, pulling back her sleeve.
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When Buffy was able to come back down to the hotel lobby, she was presented with a chorus of concerned faces.

“How is Dawn?’ Giles asked, Anya rather conspicuously in his lap.

Xander glared on.

“She’s sleeping. Spike’s up there with her now. ” Buffy looked around at the concerned faces and frowned. “I’m a little bit weak from the blood giving, so I really don’t want to deal with the whole ‘Buffy must make the decisions’ thing right now,” she finished and melted onto the couch.

“You’re house is no doubt a pile of rubble, Dawn’s ex boyfriend has probably seen to that,” Anya commented.

“They must know how we escaped,” added Tara.

“Do you think they know where you went?” asked Cordelia. “”Cause if they do, you need to go.”

“And there she is, ladies and gentlemen, Queen C,” commented Xander, doing his own version of Vanna White.

“You can’t teleport Xander, why don’t you go back to Sunnydale?” Cordelia retorted.

“Hey!” protested Amy in his defence.

“Ooh, witch girl sticking up for the demon magnet,” countered Cordelia, glaring at Xander. “That’s a surprise.”

“Great, ‘cause I needed the sniping after my house was invaded, my sister sick, and the whole group of us on the run. Thanks Cordy,” sighed Buffy.

“Does on the run mean I don’t have to do to high school?” asked Molly looked at her guardian with a hopeful expression.

“Oh, no high school for you, at least for a week or so. I’ll call the school in the morning,” Buffy explained.

“Yay,” exclaimed Molly with a dead panned tone.

“You won’t be getting out of your training that easily,” mentioned Nate. “Perhaps Angel has some sort of training facility here we can use?”

“We have a facility down stairs,” added Wesley.

“Does anyone notice that there are a large amount of watchers in this room?” observed Willow with a smile. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many watchers in one place, except that time the Council arrived to test Buffy, but didn’t ‘cause she knew what was going to happen.”

Everyone looked at Willow in silence.

“What?” she exclaimed, shrinking down into the couch.

“I think the question we have to deal with now is ‘what do we do now,’” observed Giles.

“Did you not hear me when I said I didn’t want to make decisions?” reminded Buffy.

“Regardless...”

“We...we can’t go back,” stated Tara. “They’ll capture us. I...I don’t want a chip in my head.”

“I don’t think they want to put chips in our heads,” commented Buffy with a grim look.

“Hideous experimentation,” repeated Anya.

“Oh goodie,” muttered Willow.
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Dawn awoke to find herself alone. Well, that wasn’t right, because suddenly Andrew was in her line of sight. And he was holding her hand gently.

“Late night Dawn shift?” she moaned, startling the former jailbird.

“Dawn, you’re alive!” Andrew exclaimed, leaping up to hug his friend.

“Hey! Hands!”

Andrew pulled back looking abashed. “Sorry. Dawn really. Whatever it was that made you not like me anymore, I’m sorry.” Andrew paused. “What did I do?”

Dawn pushed herself up from the bed. “Andrew, we are friends. That’s all and no more. That’s what creeped me out. You started to get all touchy feely and it made me feel wrong. I never would have gone to the prison and been your friend without Buffy telling me about the future and I’m glad she did, but I don’t think we’ll ever be more than friends Andrew. Can’t you be okay with that?”

He looked sad for a moment before nodding his head. “Ya, I guess I can be okay with that.”

Dawn squeezed his hand. “Thanks Andrew.”

“Are you okay?” he asked with concern.

“Health wise? Fine and dandy. Buffy blood does a Dawnie good. Emotionally? Little bit fragile I guess. I mean my boyfriend just tried to arrest my entire family.”

“Ex boyfriend,” Andrew reminded.

“Ya, sorry, ex boyfriend.” Dawn paused, scrunching up her nose and clenching her teeth. “I hate this!”

“What?”

“I hate that I still love him!” she yelled into the room.”

Before Andrew had an opportunity to comment, the door to the room opened and Molly popped her head into the room.

“Dawn?” asked the Slayer. “You awake?”

“No, I’m just really this animated when I’m asleep,” she deadpanned, Molly rolling her eyes at her. “Yes, I’m awake, hence the talking.”

“I should tell Buffy, she’d want to know.”

“Was she really worried?” Dawn asked, all teasing gone.

“Ya, she was, a lot,” answered Molly.

Dawn sat up and threw her legs around, off the side of the bed.

“Hey!” protested Andrew, his eyes wide as he took a step away from the bed. “Are you sure you are ready to get up?”

Dawn rolled her eyes at the nerd and proceeded to get up.
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All eyes in the lobby turned towards the stairs as Dawn walked down.

“ So what’s the plan? ” the teen asked. “How do we defeat the evil of my ex’s military might? ”

“I will never understand why women fall for guys in uniforms,” commented Gunn.

“Mmm, military goodness,” sighed Cordelia.

“Cordy!” Angel protested.

“What?” Cordy questioned back, Angel shaking his head at her.

“I don’t know that we can defeat them. If we declare all out war, I have a feeling we’ll lose in a very big way,” Buffy explained.

“Then what can we do?” asked Molly, who had followed Dawn down the stairs, followed shortly by Andrew.

“I have to talk to Graham,” answered Dawn, everyone staring at her like she’d grown another head.

“Huh?” questioned Xander. “You were there with us when we were all fleeing for our lives, right?”

“What do you propose by this, Miss Summers?” asked Nate.

“You know, you can call me Dawn. And I’m not proposing anything. We have to find out what they wanted with us, it’s the only way we can fight back. No way is there going to be info about this in any of Giles’ books.”

“Not a chance Dawn,” interjected Buffy. “I am not letting you get anywhere near that scum.”

“Scum?” questioned Dawn. “Hey! Not cool! He might be part of a military organization that wants to use teleporting demons as lab rats but he was mine and I loved him!”

“Sometimes we fall in love with people we shouldn’t, Nib,” answered Spike.

“Yes, and sometime it works out,” continued Dawn, giving Spike a hard stare. “I’m the only one who can do this. We need to know. ”

“I won’t let you put yourself in danger, Dawn,” cried Buffy. “I won’t lose you! Not again!”

“You haven’t lost me yet, and you won’t!” Dawn yelled back before going to Buffy’s side and grabbing her hand. “Not now. I’m supposed to be killed by vampires, remember?”

Buffy nodded but the others in the room were confused. Some less than others but there was still confusion.

“But I’ve changed the future here Dawn. Spike’s alive, Tara’s alive. Clearly things are not the same. This thing with Graham wasn’t supposed to happen!”

“So?” asked Dawn. “That doesn’t mean that I’m going to die now. Please Buffy, I’m all better, really.”

“I don’t think it’s wise to jump head long into this plan,” Giles added. “Any attempt to infiltrate the military could lead to your capture.”

“But I don’t want to infiltrate the military,” Dawn tried to explain.

“What do you want to do Platelet?” asked Spike, crossing his arms.

“I wanna kidnap my ex,” she said with an evil smile.
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tbc...