Nelly Furtado - Spirit Indestructible http://youtu.be/ej3SmDScjjY

Moments later...

First!Spike was suddenly gone and Buffy was left alone with Caleb and the three Bringers. Two of the blind, demonic priests had a firm grip on her arms, while the other held a dagger at the ready in case she escaped from his comrades. Buffy continued to pull with all her strength against them, but all her efforts were futile.

“No time to dally, now. Bring ‘er along, boys,” Caleb instructed as he turned and began walking toward the front stairs.

The two Bringers holding Buffy began dragging her forward, but as they reached the stairs to follow Caleb down onto the walkway, Buffy wedged one foot against the stone pillar on the side of the stairs, bent her knee to get maximum leverage, and then pushed back with all the strength she had in one leg.

Buffy felt her arms twist free of her captors as she catapulted backwards toward the front door of the house. Buffy hit the door with a heavy thud, but scrambled to her feet quickly and sprinted for the end of the porch and the yard beyond, still stubbornly clutching the one small weapon she’d been able to retrieve from her bag.

One of the surprised minions dove after her, barely catching her foot at the last possible moment. He pulled her back before she could hurtle herself over the banister or even use the weapon she had in her hand. Her chin slammed down against the floorboards of the porch when he yanked her feet out from under her. Stars swirled in her vision and she tasted blood in her mouth, though she couldn’t pinpoint the cause – had she broken a tooth or bit her lip or tongue? It all hurt too much to really tell, and she didn’t have the time or energy to waste figuring it out anyway. Before she could recover her senses, the Bringers had dragged her back up to her feet and once again had her arms  pinned in vice-like grips.

They swung her around, preparing to begin hauling her back down the stairs, when Caleb mounted the steps again.

“I believe I have wasted enough o' my precious time on you, missy,” the preacher growled, advancing on her with a dangerous gleam in his eye. “There is another of you Slayer bitches that has newly arrived ‘round these parts. We don’t need you, strictly speaking.”

Buffy had seen her life flash before her eyes in the past, more than once, actually, but that didn’t happen now. With what she knew would be her final death approaching, what flashed before her eyes were images of things that she would never see: the twins toddling around the house, getting into everything and laughing about it; pictures with Santa, homemade Christmas ornaments decorating the tree, Easter egg hunts, handmade Mother’s Day cards, finger painting, mud pies, swimming lessons, little league. Their first bike rides and the requisite skinned knees that would follow, their first climb up the tree in the backyard, and subsequent fall from said tree, their first day of school, their first sleepovers, their first loves, their first heartbreaks, homecoming, prom, graduation, weddings. The faces of her grandchildren.

Tears blurred Buffy’s vision as she intensified her effort to escape, pulling against her captors with everything she had. But her struggles were in vain; she couldn’t get free of their grasp and the weapon she still clutched in her hand was rendered useless. Spike had vowed to love her even when she was old and gray, when she was a grandmother. Now she’d never have the joy of holding him to that promise, which had melted her heart when he’d made it. 

I’m sorry, Spike, she sent heavenward like a prayer. I love you.

"Oh, now, look...Things don't go exactly your way, so here come the waterworks. Ain't that just like a woman?" Caleb mocked, still moving toward her.

Buffy gathered every ounce of resolve, fear, and adrenaline to use against her enemy – determined to not make this easy for Caleb. When he came within reach, Buffy used the Blind Mice holding her for leverage and kicked the preacher in the balls with both feet.

It had absolutely no effect.

“Just like a woman t’ try an’ seduce me. Told you before, missy, I ain’t like those other men you’ve lured into your wicked bed,” Caleb retorted scornfully.

Buffy kicked again, this time hitting him in the chest. Although it had little effect on Caleb, only sending him back a step, it served to make the minions holding her stumble back against the railing, giving Buffy a small surge of renewed hope. As soon as her feet came back to the floor, she lifted them again, as if they’d been propelled by a spring, and kicked out at Caleb once more.

This time, however, Caleb grabbed her around both ankles with impossibly strong hands. “Now, now … manners,” he chided, as he flung her feet to one side, stepping forward quickly and clasping his powerful fingers around her throat.

Suddenly, there was a new Buffy standing next to Caleb, her arms crossed over her chest and an impatient look on her face. “You do realize if you kill her now, we’ll have to start all over, don’t you?” the new Buffy asked Caleb as she watched him strangling her twin. “The other one has friends … protection. She won’t be as easy to lure out into the open.”

“Just gonna tame this’un down a bit,” Caleb retorted, never loosening his grip on Buffy’s throat. “Can’t ride a wild filly, gotta break ‘em first.”

First!Buffy gave Caleb a skeptical look, as he continued strangling the Slayer. “You better know what you’re doing.”

Caleb smirked. “You forget, I’ve handled a filly or two before.”

Buffy struggled to get her arms free from the Blind Mice, but they were deceptively strong, and held her tight. She kicked at Caleb again, then kicked backwards at the minions, but her blows were ineffectual and growing weaker as the blood-flow to her brain was cut off.

She could feel her life ebbing away as a shroud of darkness began to descend over her vision. Her heart pounded valiantly in her chest, trying to force life-giving oxygen past Caleb’s fingers to her brain, but it was outclassed.

Buffy’s head felt like it was going to explode at any moment as her tissues fought for oxygen – she had never felt such intense, blinding agony before. Only the knowledge that if she didn’t kill Caleb that he’d eventually go after Spike, Joan, Jade, and Will kept her from giving up completely and succumbing to the ever-increasing darkness, which lured her with its promise of peaceful oblivion.

Impossibly loud explosions began to echo in her brain, bouncing painfully off her skull. Light flashed in her inky-black field of vision, and her ears rang from the sound, which she couldn’t identify. She wasn’t even sure if it was coming from inside her head or if it was something external to herself. She prayed it would stop muddling the few brain cells that remained functional, and to her utter relief, it did.

Buffy suddenly realized that her arms had been released by the minions – perhaps the sound had been real and it was affecting them, as well. She had no time or energy to question the reason or source of her luck – killing Caleb was the one and only thought her oxygen-starved brain could sustain.

Buffy pulled her hands against her chest, still clutching the one weapon she’d managed to extract from her bag before Caleb had kicked it away from her. Using every ounce of willpower and stubborn Slayer strength she had, she brought her hands together between herself and the preacher and pulled the pin on the grenade.

Caleb must’ve heard the rasp of metal on metal as it slid out, or perhaps heard the pin drop to the floor, because he looked down, and for a moment his grip on her throat lessened. Blood rushed past his fingers, flooding Buffy’s head with oxygen-rich blood. Having it begin again so quickly was, ironically, just as painful as having the blood-flow stopped. Despite the agony that flooded into her head, her brain cells drank in the oxygen greedily and coherent thoughts began to return to her.

Buffy sent one last silent, prayer-like goodbye to her family – this was it. She had gone directly to ‘last resort’ and she knew she would not be coming back from it. Blinking her eyes open past the pounding in her cranium, Buffy released the safety lever, arming the grenade.

“You little, cheating slut!” Caleb hissed, his eyes wide with shock and fury. He began backing up and reaching frantically for her hand that held the weapon at the same time.

Buffy gave it to him – right down the front of his pants. She’d no sooner stuffed her hand with the grenade into his jeans than she felt something yank her back away from the preacher. Buffy barely had enough time to release her hold on the explosive, leaving it with him, before she was flung through the air and over the porch railing. She landed hard in the yard beyond, rolling with the momentum until she crashed into the oak tree. She felt the bark embed into the slice in her lower back and all the air leave her lungs, adding to her debilitating agony.

Buffy tried to scramble behind the tree to get away from whatever had tossed her there and away from the grenade. Unfortunately, before she could force her body to obey her mind’s commands, the unmistakable explosion of the fragmentation grenade concussed her ears, sending more lances of pain into her brain. In the next moment, she felt something hot and sharp rip into her leg, levering the pain-scale up a few more agonizing notches.

Buffy curled into a ball and screamed with the utter anguish of it, clutching at her torn and bleeding calf with one hand and trying to cover her ringing ears with the other arm and hand. In the next moment, a shower of hot, red gore rained down on her, coating her in blood and guts. Preacher guts.

Unable to form words, Buffy simply whimpered as she pressed down on the ragged gash in her leg to stem the considerable amount of blood that was pouring out, and tried not to retch. Buffy’s head began to swim in a dizzying whirl and she closed her eyes for just a moment. She laid her head down on the ground to try and stop the spinning and realized that the grass beneath her felt simply heavenly – cool and soft … solid, silent, and unmoving. She was unable to fight the weariness that descended on her like a heavy shroud as her adrenaline ebbed and her blood pressure began to plummet. Just a moment to rest was all she needed … just … one … minute.

**~**

Trying to follow Buffy through the deserted streets of Sunnydale without being seen had been more difficult than Joan had imagined. Despite the difficulty, she’d endeavored to do so using her considerable stealthy Slayer skills and expertise, because that was what Spike had instructed before he’d stopped the bus that Buffy was on back in Austin. While he kept everyone’s attention focused on him, Joan had crawled into the luggage compartment to accompany Buffy to Sunnydale undetected.

“Keep a watch on ‘er, don’t let ‘er see ya or she’ll be royally brassed off. Only intervene if it looks like she needs help.”

Joan had lost Buffy more than once as she tried to stay hidden, and had to rely on her precise olfactory sensors to follow the Other Slayer’s scent more than once. It was, therefore, quite disturbing for Joan when she arrived in time to see Buffy being held by two blind demons and strangled by a man dressed like a preacher.

“Oh, blue buggering fuck!” Joan exclaimed, pleased to be able to use one of the terms from the ‘Exclamations and Ejaculations’ file she’d been building over the last year. There had been a particularly steady stream of them that she’d collected religiously in the months she, Spike, and Buffy had worked in earnest on refurbishing the house in Austin. That one was one of her favorites, uttered by Spike when he hit his own thumb with a hammer rather than striking his target: an elusive, if stationary, nail. 

“This is unacceptable,” Joan announced as she came up behind Buffy and the two minions holding her, but they were too engrossed with the Other Slayer to notice Joan. “Spike would be very displeased if I allowed Buffy’s respiration to cease.”

Not actively engaged in the struggle with the Slayer, the third blind demon saw Joan and started for her, wickedly sharp dagger in hand, ready to strike her down. In the blink of an eye, Joan’s right hand bent backwards as if attached by hinges at her wrist – which, well, it was – until the top of her hand was lying against her arm. Suddenly a gun barrel protruded from the open end of her arm where her hand had been.

Joan calmly raised the .44 Magnum that had been an ‘after-market’ upgrade she’d done herself just a month ago, and took aim.

Admittedly, Buffy had been against the new feature, but Spike had thought it a brilliant idea. Buffy argued that there was no need for more weaponry since she wasn’t ‘in the fight’ any longer – she’d retired.

“And passed the mantle on t’ Joan,” Spike reminded her. “She’s the bloody Slayer now, accordin’ to you. She should be able to arm ‘erself as she sees fit.

“She does patrol the park and the neighborhood,” he continued to argue on Joan’s behalf. “Not many vamps to be had here, but she’s dusted a few. On top o’ that, she stopped a robbery at Hogan’s Drugs, broke up a fight at The Stagger Inn, and chastised that cheeky ankle-biter that lives down the street for littering.”

Spike also pointed out that even Buffy had used weapons that weren’t strictly ‘traditional’ in the past.

“Ya blew up Big Blue with a soddin’ rocket launcher, Slayer!” Spike had argued. “Bloody hell! This is nothin’ compared t’ that! The world is changin’, Buffy, and I can tell ya from experience, you either change with it or you get trampled and left for dead.”

In the end, Joan and Spike had worn Buffy down. After Joan proved to Buffy that she was deadly accurate with it, and that she understood what ‘deadly accurate’ really meant, Buffy had grudgingly agreed. It was the ongoing discussion of ‘non-traditional’ weaponry that had led Buffy to ‘think outside the box’ when she was preparing for this mission and arm herself with other military-grade devices, like grenades. The demons didn’t fight fair, she reasoned, why should she?

“Go ahead, punk … make my day,” Joan quipped as the blind demon bounded over the porch railing toward her. She took the demon out with a single shot to the chest as he was in midair. He fell like a stone onto the grass at Joan’s feet, a gaping wound in his torso where his heart used to be.

Caleb and the two minions holding Buffy started at the sound, but with two more precise, deafening shots from Joan’s ‘Dirty Harry’ special, the other two blind mice lay bleeding and twitching on the porch before they could even look around.

With Buffy between her and the preacher, Joan couldn’t shoot Caleb without endangering the Other Slayer, so she leapt up onto the porch next to the pair to get a clear shot. She’d no sooner landed than Buffy pulled the pin on the grenade.

In an instant, Joan’s microprocessors calculated the risks and determined that Buffy would not survive the blast at her current proximity to the explosive.  With the amazing speed of a robot, Joan retracted the gun barrel and re-engaged her hand in its proper position. She grasped Buffy by the back of her neck and her belt, and flung her away from Caleb mere micro-seconds before the device exploded, showering everything within a thirty-foot radius with little bloody bits of preacher entrails and shrapnel.

**~**

Buffy woke up to a pounding head, a bruised throat, an aching back, and a throbbing leg. She moaned and held her spinning head as she pushed herself up to sitting. She had no idea how long her ‘minute’ nap had lasted, but she was sure it had been more than a minute. It had been mid-afternoon when she’d met Caleb, and now the sun was beginning to set. She rubbed at her aching head and pulled the leg of her jeans up to look at the wound on her calf. Thankfully, it had stopped bleeding, but the piece of metal was still in there. She needed to get it out for it to really heal.

Buffy groaned audibly as she pushed up to standing, leaning against the tree to get her balance on one leg. Looking down at herself she realized she was covered in blood, gore, and other things she didn’t even want to think about.

“Oh … God … could this day get any worse?” she wondered, swallowing back her stomach’s reaction to the grossness she was coated in.

The answer, of course, was ‘yes’.

“Joan!” Buffy exclaimed when her eyes fell on the unmoving body of her twin which was sprawled half over the porch’s railing. She began to run forward to her BFF-Bot, but her injured leg gave way when she put weight on it and she tumbled to the ground again.

“Joan!” Buffy called again, crawling on hands and knees back to the porch as hot, frightened tears blurred her vision.

“God, Joan …” she moaned, pulling herself up to standing using the banister her fallen comrade was slumped over. The Bot’s back had been riddled with shrapnel from the grenade. Her clothing and dermis was ripped and ragged, and shredded wires in a myriad of colors protruded in a grotesque rainbow from the wounds.

“Joan, please … talk to me. Joan?” Buffy begged, pulling the Bot the rest of the way over the railing and laying her down gently in the grass on her back.

To Buffy’s relief, Joan’s eyes blinked open. “Oh, God! Oh, thank God!” Buffy breathed, dropping down next to her injured friend and pulling her into a hug. “I thought you were dead. Thank God …” she continued to mutter, holding the Bot against her.

“My memory is intact; however my processors are only at thirty-seven percent functionality, my power reserves are near critically low levels, and my trunk and limb function has been interrupted,” Joan reported.

Buffy wiped at her eyes and gently laid the Bot back down on the grass. “What do we need to do to fix it?” she asked.

“I must recharge before my power supply reaches four percent. At that level the fail-safe will trigger and all functionality and memory will be cleared with an electro-magnetic power burst. When it reaches two percent, the self-destruct protocol will initiate and my internal incendiaries will ignite.”

“But … I thought that only happened if you were captured,” Buffy argued frantically. “You’re not captured – we’re not captured – we’re fine! Turn that fail-proton-thingy off!”

“That is not an option of the fail-safe protocol,” Joan told Buffy. “If my power level reaches four percent, it is assumed that I have been captured or irrevocably lost, and my data is at risk of being breached, putting our family at risk.”

“Damn it, Joan!” Buffy cursed angrily. “That’s crazy! Who came up with that cockamamie rule?”

“It was my design. It is the most logical way to assure my data is not used maliciously if I am captured as you were previously. You and Spike agreed. I inserted the fail-safe into my BIOS and hard-coded it into my Kernel. I then installed the incendiary devices within my strong and shapely frame,” Joan reminded her.

“Well …. that was brainless! Spike and I aren’t qualified to agree to those kind of things!” Buffy argued, fretting her lip anxiously. “Ok … how do we fix it? Just tell me how to fix it.”

“My charging equipment is in my pack near the corner of the house,” Joan instructed.

Buffy nodded. “Ok … ok, we’ll just go inside and recharge. No problem … we can do this. It’ll be fine. You’ll be fine,” Buffy assured her as she began to push up to her feet again.

“The town’s power supply has been interrupted. There is no way for me to recharge at this time,” the Bot pointed out.

Buffy looked around. Joan was right – there were no lights on anywhere, not streetlights or house lights. The only lights that could be seen at all were small, solar-powered yard lights.

“Shit!” Buffy cursed, trying to think. “Shit, shit, shit!”

“I am sorry, Buffy. Spike dispatched me to assist you, but I am unable to fulfill my mission in its entirety. When the fail-safe engages, I will cease to …” The Bot seemed to choke on the words as she looked sadly up at Buffy. “I will cease to exist.”

“No! That’s not gonna happen. You need to go back into power-conserve mode now!” Buffy ordered.

Joan ignored her and continued to speak. “Please tell India that I have enjoyed her friendship and that I am sorry that I will be unable to spend more time in her company. I had looked forward to engaging in lively and interesting discussions with her for many years to come. She has been a wonderful friend and I find her companionship extremely pleasing.”

“Joan, please…”

“Please relay to Spike that I am repentant for failing in this mission and that I will miss our family very much. I had looked forward to observing the growth of our offspring and fulfilling the important role of ‘Aunt’. They are quite fascinating, despite being untidy and often discharging pungent odors.”

“Joan …” Buffy tried again, but the Bot just kept talking over her.

“I am also sorry that I cannot continue to be the Slayer. I excelled at dusting vampires and my quips have been steadily growing in hilarity and irony, but I must pass the mantle back to you now.

“Buffy, please promise that you will tell Spike that I tried my best,” Joan concluded.

“Damn it! Go into power-conserve mode, Joan! That’s an order! NOW!” Buffy repeated more vehemently.

“Please promise…” the Bot continued.

“I fucking promise but only if you go to sleep RIGHT NOW,” Buffy continued frantically. “And do not wake up until I say … ummm … Rumpelstiltskin! Got it?”

Joan nodded and gave Buffy a small, sad smile. “I love you, Buffy. I know that I can count on you. You have always been my friend.

“Goodbye,” Joan murmured as her eyes fluttered closed.

Buffy felt her breath catch in her throat as she looked down on the now completely motionless form on the grass. It looked like she had died right there.

“She’s not dead, she’s not dead,” Buffy repeated like a mantra as she gritted her teeth against the pain in her body and hobbled over to retrieve the Bot’s charging equipment. “Think, Slayer … think! Who would have power when there’s no power?”

Buffy sighed in relief when the answer hit her. “The hospital. They have generators.”

Buffy grimaced as she slung the Bot’s backpack over one shoulder and her own over the other. She paused only a few seconds to make sure that Caleb was truly dead. The sight brought the bile up from her stomach again – he was most certainly dead.

“Where ya goin’, luv?” Spike asked as he causally sauntered down the front steps, his thumbs hooked over his belt buckle.

Buffy scowled at him. “Go fuck yourself!”

First!Spike pressed his tongue against his teeth and leered at her. “Much rather fuck you, pet.”

“Yeah, well … that must be frustrating for you, being all ghostie and all. Kinda tough to get hard that way, isn’t it?”

A lecherous smile quirked First!Spike’s lips. “Come with me, Slayer … I can give you power and exhilaration beyond anything you’ve ever dreamt of. Joining with me would be more rapturous than anything a physical body could give you. Together we could rule…”

“Blah, blah, blah,” Buffy interrupted him, moving over to Joan. “Here’s a newsflash, Casper: I don’t want any of your power, rapture, or to rule the freaking world! Now, get the hell away from me before I find a way to kick your incorporeal ass.”

First!Spike snorted derisively and was suddenly gone in a swirl of black. Buffy blew out a breath of relief – she wasn’t entirely sure what the ghostly apparition was capable of, and was in no shape, and had no time, to find out right now.

Buffy screamed in pain and effort as she lifted the Bot up off the lawn. The agony in her leg and back redoubled, and she felt her muscles quiver with the effort to remain standing. Tears filled her eyes, both from frustration and physical agony. Damn it! How was she gonna get all the way to the hospital like this? You’re the fucking Slayer, that’s how! Just do it! came the vehement reply from somewhere deep down in her soul as she began walking.

**~**

Buffy stumbled and nearly fell as she tried to step up onto Sunnydale Memorial’s front sidewalk from the parking lot. She was forced to half-drop, half-set Joan down onto the cement in order to catch her balance. Buffy’s leg, which had begun bleeding again during the trek, had gone numb – she was both frightened and thankful for that. Her back had also started bleeding again, it, unfortunately, had not gone numb. Sharp jolts of pain shot down her legs with each step and her lower back was on the verge of completely seizing up with debilitating muscle spasms.

Buffy took a moment to wipe the sweat from her brow, rest her back, catch her breath, and look at her injured leg. She’d been walking as fast as she could all the way from Revello Drive, only stopping a couple of times to check parked cars for keys. The only one she found with keys in the ignition turned out to be out of gas. If only Spike were here – he could’ve hot-wired one for her. Joan probably could’ve too. Buffy sighed and looked down at the sleeping – not dead, she assured herself – robot.

Gathering her will and the last ounces of determination she had, Buffy hefted Joan back up and staggered into the hospital.  It, like the rest of Sunnydale, was deserted. However, unlike the rest of the town, the emergency lights were on. There had to be power somewhere, Buffy just had to find it.

“ICU,” Buffy said aloud. If anyplace would have power to the electrical outlets, it would be ICU.

Buffy groaned in exhausted horror when she realized that meant walking up the stairs to the second floor. “You can do it … just one step in front of the other, right, left, right, left…” she chanted as she pulled the door to the stairway open and quickly slid in sideways before it closed on her, careful not to bang Joan’s head on the wall or doorjamb.

“Right … left … right … left …” Buffy finished, gasping for air as she reached the landing on the second floor.

She felt the small bones in her spine shifting, sending daggers of pain into her hips, down her legs, and up her spine. It was all Buffy could do to remain standing as she pressed her butt against the push-bar on the door to swing it open. She stumbled back with it until the door hit the wall. Pain flashed through her whole body with the sudden stop, and she had to close her eyes and just try to breath for several moments, fighting the urge to simply pass out.

Finally, still holding Joan in her arms, Buffy forced her eyes open and looked around the second floor. Relief flooded her when she saw lights – not emergency lights, but actual lights! – in the rooms and hallways beyond. She staggered forward, scanning the wall for a plug-in and finally finding one near the nurse’s station.

She laid Joan down quickly, unable to set her down gently as her back finally gave out completely. She fought through the pain and began grappling with the backpack to get the charging equipment out.

“Please … just … come out,” Buffy growled, fighting frantically with the wires and converter as they tangled and clung to the zipper obstinately. 

Buffy finally freed the wires and found both ends of the cord. She shoved the three-prong plug-in into the wall and began to fumble with Joan’s tattered shirt to get access to the charging panel. “Come onnnn,” she begged, blinking back tears of frustration, pain, and exhaustion.

Finally, the cord clicked into place and the little light on the charger began to flash red. Buffy slumped down atop Joan, completely spent. Please, God … please let it be in time, she prayed silently as her exhaustion overtook her and the world went dark.

**~**