Title: Stop Motion Prologue
Author: Shannon
Pairing: Willow/Giles
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Characters belong to Joss Whedon, ME, UPN, FOX, and WB.
Distribution: http://magical-worlds.us/musings/, My LJ (shannon730), Hairy Eyeball if Elisabeth wants it. Anyone else that has my other fics. Any one else just let me know first.
Summary: Buffy is injured. Willow and Giles work together to help her and find the vampires behind the attack.
Author's Notes: Thanks to Gabrielle for betaing this for me. This is written in response to Michelle's challenge
What would happen if Buffy was paralyzed? I'd like to see a story about this, and about Giles' reaction to it. Pairing: A Giles/Buffy pairing would be preferred, but any pairing would be good. (It could be interesting to see how Buffy's paralysis would affect Giles' relationship with someone else.) I hope it's at least close to what you wanted.
Buffy ran through the dark cemetery, not wanting to take the time to look back. She hadn't seen them at first, not all of them anyway. She had seen the fledgling and one other vampire, the other ten had come later, or emerged from hiding. She still wasn't sure which. All she knew was that they had appeared out of nowhere, and she wasn't ready.
Now she had to get home. She was close, only of couple blocks. If she could get into the house she'd be safe. Not the bravest way for a slayer to react, especially not one of the slayers , but survival was better than saving her pride, right? She was almost to the edge of the cemetery, so close that she could see the street. And the people. A large group of people were leaving a restaurant on the other side of the street. She couldn't lead the vampires to them. She couldn't serve those people up as an all you can eat buffet, not to save herself.
She swerved to the left and ran back into the cemetery, it was a longer way home, but wouldn't endanger innocent people. She shouldn't have come here alone, that's why Giles had bought her the big house, and sent several, mostly trained, slayers to live with her and Dawn. Having so many new slayers in the world had made her more, not less, of a target.
Killing a slayer was no longer as impressive as it used to be, too many half-trained girls with super powers running around now. A vampire that wanted to make a name for themselves now had to kill one of the slayers. It had been open season on both her and Faith since news of what they had done in Sunnydale had spread. She had been fairly safe for a while; fear of the Immortal had kept the vampires away, but now.
She was almost there, she could see the empty street. A few more feet and she'd be on the road, the vampires would be less likely to follow. Then only a few blocks to her house and she'd be safe. They were getting closer, she could sense them gaining on her, she stopped running and spun around. She couldn't outrun them, but she wasn't going to go down without a fight. She pulled a stake from her pocket and threw it, hitting one vampire in the chest. It turned to dust as the others kept approaching. There were fewer than had originally been following her, she could do this, she thought, she had to.
"Buffy!"
Buffy turned at the sound of Dawn's voice, "Get out of here, Dawn," she shouted. Before she could say anything more she felt something hit her back, and she fell to the ground. She could hear a lot of yelling and screaming. The vampires were running now, they were fleeing. Dust hit her face and she realized Dawn had someone with her, someone the vampires feared. Someone that made them abandon their chance at the glory of killing her.
"Call for an ambulance, Dawn," she heard Willow say, before her friend's face appeared, hovering over her. "Buffy, don't move, okay? We're getting help."
"Will." Buffy's voice trailed off as the pain became too much and everything went black.