Another hour. Another hour of waiting and pacing the waiting room. Another sixty minutes of shaking.

No one was able to get anything from anyone. Willow had called Buffy's father after hearing she was in surgery. They were expecting him to arrive with in the hour now. Another thing they had to wait an hour for.

Xander and Pike returned from getting drinks for everyone. Giles didn't like the idea that they only sold coffee and not tea. "What a bloody corrupt tradition." He responded with a shake of the head, receiving a bottle of water in it's place.

A few doctors exited the section of which the swinging doors read, "Employees Only." Seeing them, thinking with false hope, the group perked up, sitting back down in their seats as the doctors passed by them and out of the room.

Angel was growing more and more anxious. The smell of her blood still hung in his head. It was a haunting feeling that was left in him from the memory. He was running everything that happened in the graveyard that night. Yes, the vampire kicked her, but Buffy is stronger than that, how could it have effected her so violently?

Angel's legs were tapping in a nervous rhythm. He finally leaned back, puffing out his chest as he took in a deep breath. His hands gripped the armrests as he stood up, raging, saying, "This is ridiculous. I can't wait any longer." He started for the doors to the restricted area.

"Where are you going?" Giles stood up, calling after him.

Angel turned just before the doors. "To find out what's happening to her." With that confirmed, he swung one of the doors open and slipped in so that he wouldn't be seen.

The smell of illness flooded his senses; medications, plastic wrapping, tile cleaner and throw-up mixed with a touch of sweat was what attacked his nostrils. He took in a deep breath, trying to contain himself, to get used to it in a hurry. Everything seemed so unreal at that moment. Even more than when he had become "human." He didn't think he could handle being in the dark of Buffy's condition any more. He began to walk faster. If he didn't have his arms swaying at his sides, back and forth, instead of higher up, people would have said that he was running down the hall, looking quickly into each room. Searching for his beloved.

Angel slowed a bit as he approached another bunch of rooms. He peeked into each one, some were open, others he cracked for a glimpse; an old woman, a man, another woman with her husband reading to her from a magazine.

"What are you-?" The female doctor that shooed Angel out had spotted him. "What are YOU doing in here? This is a restricted area to you until we get you." She approached him. "Besides, you aren't family. What are you doing?"

Angel rolled his eyes at her mention of "family only" again. At that moment he was as close to it as her parents were. "Please. She's my fiancee" He lied to get her to spill some information. "I need to know what's going on. How she's doing. Why she-"

"She's fine." She was very short with him, even more than before. She started to walk around him to a storage room. He turned with her and followed.

"But what happened? Why did she pass out? Why the surgery? Please." She finally looked at him as the door closed on it's own behind them.

"She reopened the puncture wound in her uterus. We had to repair it." She stood by the door with two boxes of gauze in her hands. "She fainted because of the pain." She opened the door and gave a last word to him before she exited. "If you two had gone to a God damned professional, she wouldn't have passed out or had needed surgery tonight." Angel was in shock to everything this woman was telling him. But she had already left him, heading for the front desk for that particular area. She dropped off the boxes of gauze on the counter and plucked a chart from a small rack on the end.

Angel snapped out of it and ran up behind her. "What do you mean 'professional?' Professional for what?" He met her speed and walked with her, not giving any indication that he would give up in clawing her for information.

She inspected the contents of the chart, stopping in front of a specific room. It was then that Angel was able to see and read her name tag. "Dr. V. Archamees." "What does the 'V' in your name stand for?" It was a sudden take in curiosity.

"Virgo." She looked up from the written data, brushing a strand of hair from her eyes. "It was a spear of the moment naming." She explained with less detail than her was looking for, trying to strike a sensitive side to the doctors. They stood there for a few seconds, which seemed to be too long for Angel, still outside the door to room 315.

Finally, when Angel had run out of ideas of persuasion, aside from violence, she spoke. "You two should have gone to a clinic for the abortion." She opened the door while Angel still stood there. Taking in what she had just explained to him.

His concentration, but not his bewilderment, was intervened. "Don't you want to see her?" The doctor was holding the door for him all the while, waiting for him to come in and see his "fiancee."

Part Twenty

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