Ch.37: Hour after hour

                                    

                                          

  "Hey, guys! I'm back!" I called out while closing the door behind me with my foot since my arms were full of bags. "Do you want me to pick Dawn up from school today?" When I heard crying, I stopped in my tracks. I smelt vomit and death. 'Did Buffy kill another demon in the house?' Furrowing my brows, I walked into the living room.
  My whole body froze. My heart felt like it had stopped, and my arms fell to my sides. The grocery bags fell to the floor, the glass items breaking as I heard the eggs crack.
  "Joyce...." I mumbled while looking down at the pale woman lying on the living room floor. Her eyes were open, her face void of emotion as I strained to hear a heartbeat. "No...." I stepped back while waving a finger. "No, no way in Hell...." Stumbling, I fell back in front of the stairs, unable to look away from Buffy and Dawn's mother.
  Tears began to silently fall down my cheeks as I felt a hole beginning to grow inside me. Joyce was dead. She'd been dead for a while now, the scent she gave off told me so. Maybe a few hours now- it was too late to do anything. Shaking my head, I began to sob while repeatedly saying 'no'.
  "Aud?" I heard Pops behind me, but I still couldn't look away.
  "I should have been here." I mumbled. "I should have been here! That was the whole point of me moving in, to keep the Summers safe!" My nose picked up traces of other humans around Joyce. 'Buffy must have called an ambulance....but that wouldn't have changed anything.' "I was supposed to keep them safe!" I yelled.
~
  At the hospital, I sat with Buffy and Dawn. I couldn't bear to look at them, I had failed in doing the only job I really had. My sole responsibility was to help them and to make sure nothing happened to Buffy's family, and I failed in doing so.
  I just sat there when the others had arrived, their faces grave and their eyes somber. Joyce may not have been my mother, but it sure felt like it. Everyone was hugging, expressing their support and love. Holding my head in my hands, I barely paid attention to them. My head hurt from crying. The lights hurt my eyes, and I just wanted to curl up into a ball. I wished over and over that this was all just a bad dream, but I knew it was real and it wasn't a nightmare I was going to wake up from.
  "Doctor?" Pops spoke, and I looked up. Buffy, Dawn, and Giles all walked toward the doctor while the others stayed back. Even though they stood so far away, I could still hear them.
  "Okay, I've examined your mother's body." He nodded.
  "Can we see her?" Dawn asked.
  "Dawn, not now." Buffy said lowly.
  "The on-site report seems more or less accurate. Your mother did have what looks like an aneurysm- a sudden hemorrhaging from a ruptured arterial vessel near the- Uh, where the tumor was removed."
  "Shouldn't we have known about that-that was a danger?" Buffy questioned.
  "Sometimes these things are detectable, and sometimes they're not. Joyce was aware of the possibility of a rupture....and the effects. She didn't even get on the phone, so, clearly, this was very sudden." The doctor explained. "She, uh, may have felt a little nausea and probably passed out as it happened. I doubt there was much pain." 'So....she went peacefully?' I thought. "And even if someone had been by her side, it's doubtful that this could have been dealt with in time." 'I wouldn't even have been able to help her....'
  "Uh, thank you, doctor." Pops said.
  "Are you sure....that there wasn't a lot of pain?"
  "Absolutely." Getting up, I walked away.
  "Aud, where you going?" Xander asked, and I ignored him. Going down a hall, I walked past a nurse's station and stood in front of a window. It would be so easy to just lash out, to just let my rage and sorrow control me. I could easily level this whole hospital, Hell, maybe even the whole town. But I didn't. It wasn't Sunnydale's fault.
  Staring out the window, I looked to the horizon. 'She's gone....' My mind whispered. 'Joyce's gone, and she's not coming back.' Suddenly, I found my hands bleeding from my claws digging into my palms. 'Why can't I turn back time and fix this?' Looking at my hands, I watched the blood drip to the floor.
  Turning my head, I calmly called out to a nurse and told them that there was blood on the floor. Closing my hands into fists, I went back to the waiting room. Standing there, I looked at Buffy and Tara talking. 'Where's Dawn?' I thought before sniffing. My legs began to move on their own as I ran. Her scent trail led straight to the morgue. 'I can't let her see!'
  Sliding to a halt, I looked through the windows on the doors as I heard Dawn screaming. 'No! Not Dawn! I can't let her die!' Growling, I burst through the locked doors and attacked the vampire holding Dawn. Yanking him back, I threw him to the ground. He had two bloody handprints on his shoulders where I had grabbed him, and he grinned as he smelt my blood. 
  The vampire jumped to his feet and growled as he lept at me. Stepping to the side, he went past me. Grabbing his leg with my tail, I dragged him to the ground. The thud echoed in the quiet room when he fell. Straddling the vampire's back, I put my hands on either side of his head, digging my claws into his scalp. With one firm tug, I ripped the vampire's head clean off.
  As it turned to dust in my hands, I could hear the growl deep in my chest subsiding. Looking up, I saw Dawn standing up and looking at her mother as she laid on the table under a white sheet.
  "Is she cold?"
  "It's not her." I slowly rose to my feet. "She's gone."
  "Where'd she go?" Dawn asked as I walked up behind her.
  "Heaven. Joyce was a wonderful woman." Dawn was reaching out to touch her mother's face, but I grabbed her hand before she could. She didn't need to feel the coldness of death. "You know, she was the closest thing I had to a mother. I can't really remember mine." Gently squeezing her hand, Dawn and I looked down at the body on the table. "....You and Buffy are like the siblings I never had." Dawn squeezed my hand back, and I led her out of the morgue.