London~1830
Cordy was still feeling shakey. Stop it, Cordy. she inwardly snapped at herself. Get with it. You have a task. Get on that. Doll. It's in the admin's office type room, just go get it. She headed with a purposeful stride there, forcing her outward demeanor to her more normal, 'get out of the way or get run down' attitude. She had clutched in one hand something she never would have wanted to touch unless she had to--a femur bone. It was hidden in her skirts as she got to her destination. She walked into the admin's office, which had been left cracked open a little. He was in there speaking with a young man, obviously not from the asylum itself. He was clean, for one. Both turned wide eyes on her when she entered. She turned her no nonsense expression on the young man. "Get out." she demanded.
The young man stood up and looked like he wanted to argue with her. "See here--" he broke off abruptly when Cordy turned to face him, body hiding the bone from the admin, but not from the young man.
"Get. Out." she repeated, in a tone that left no room for argument, and she gave the bone a little harder grip for effect. It worked, the guy rushed out. She turned on the sputtering admin. "You have a doll that belonged to a girl named London. Hand it over."
The administrator was a portly man with beady eyes and a mean look about him. "I don't know what you're talking about." he said. "Now, Lady Charolette, please kindly turn back around and go back to where you belong."
"Yeah, okay, let me rephrase." Cordelia leaned on the desk, the bone in her hand clearly visible. "Give me the doll, and I'll walk out of here without giving you head trauma and telling the rest of the inmates you're down." she saw his expression flicker. "You know, for some reason they don't like you." she added in a deceptively light tone. "Think they'll come in to help you?" she leaned further over the desk. "Or think they might come in and kill your sadistic ass?"
"It's in a locked cabinet two doors down the hall on the left." he said.
"Key?" she asked. He grudgingly took out a thick set of keys, and was going to give her the one, but she snatched the whole set. "Thank you. Now sit down, and be a good little boy for ten minutes. I'll be out of your hair, and no one needs a concussion." she said, turning on her heel and slamming the door shut behind herself. She headed swiftly up the hall, and found the room in question. It didn't take her long after that, being she got an actually helpful vision when she entered the room. She took out a rattly doll that was just as filthy as London was. It was a creepy little ragdoll, and Cordy briefly touched her finger to it's face, then shook herself and hugged it to her chest, hurrying out in search of Buffy.
Buffy looked up when Cordy finally returned to the common area, clutching...something. Something small, squishy and gray. She figured it was the doll, but she's been expecting a big china head, maybe creepy and cracked. Not a limp little Raggedy Ann type thing, but then that's probably what poor girls in this back end of history had.
"You found it? So we can put the vision to rest finally?" she asked, and then frowned in amazement when she saw the bone Cordy still had firmly clutched in her hand. "Way to go on the weapon improvisation. Please don't tell me where you got it."
She stuck her hand inside the bib of her apron--there were benefits to being cast as the maid, after all--and pulled out a rough stake. "So...time to go find vamp girl." In so many ways, she hated to have to do it.
Cordy hadn't really planned on telling Buffy where she'd gotten the bone either, she'd rather forget the whole incident. Her eyes hesitated on Buffy's stake, and she looked like she wanted to say something, but didn't. "...yeah let's go." she said finally, and headed up the hallways. She was on a mission. This had to be done, right? So why was it so iffy seeming in her mind?
Buffy followed along, Cordy seemed to know where she was going and she had no idea how to find the girl. London, that's what Cordelia had called her. She kinda preferred vamp girl, since she had a notoriously hard time actually dusting vamps whose names she knew. Especially after the scene she'd witnessed through the crack in the wall.
Cordy seemed a little hesitant, too. "So what, you give her the doll, and the visions go away? Not quite sure how that whole deal works. I only ever got the creepy dreams."
"Feel lucky." Cordy snapped a little harsher than she meant to. "At least your creepy dreams didn't threaten to blow out the back of your skull." she muttered, and speaking of visions, she got hit with another one, and she stumbled, leaning heavily against the wall. She grit her teeth as the wavery images hit her, the doll, London, one clear image of the vampire's watery green eyes looking up at her in an expression that could only be described as trust.
Cordy straightened after a long moment and glared at the ceiling. "Not helping." she crabbed, then glanced back towards her companion. "...she should be up there." she said in a much softer tone, nodding up the darkened hallway. At the end of the corridor, there was one room that the door was cracked. She didn't move, however. She stayed leaning against the wall.
Buffy frowned. Okay, the talking at the ceiling thing and the obvious pain...yeah, sure made the slayer dreams not seem so bad, even if they were cryptic as hell. "You...okay?"
When Cordy didn't answer right away, she glanced back at the room up the hall. She's just a vamp, a crazy vamp like Drusilla...except she knew she wasn't, she might have a not so PC way of expressing it, but this crazy vamp had a sense of right and wrong and was trying to go for right.
"I'm fine." Cordy said, straightening. She took a few steps towards the cracked door, then stopped again. "No, I'm not. You're going to stake her. And I can't believe I'm saying this...but doesn't it seem...." she trailed off, not wanting to so blatantly put it as being 'wrong' but not knowing how else to express it. She glanced at the Slayer to see if she felt the same way whatsoever, or if she was alone in her unexpected dilemma.
Buffy sighed and looked down. "Yeah, it does. I didn't mention before because you seemed so wigged, but...I saw her. Putting some poor crazy woman out of her misery."
She gritted her teeth and clutched the stake. "But you know what? She shouldn't be the one to make that decision. That's what's not right here. I'm not saying the monsters running the asylum are any better, but there should be a choice #3."
"Yeah, because Screaming Betty was really living a quality life that should have been preserved. I know if I was here I'd have wanted someone to just put me down." Cordy said then sighed, rubbing at her temples with her free hand. "She saved my life." she said after a long pause. She wasn't going to go into it, she just left it at that.
Buffy closed her eyes. She'd sorta figured something had gone down with vamp girl...London. "I--I'm glad she did."
But she had to argue, "Look, I know Screaming Betty had a miserable existence but does that mean she should die to get out of it? If so, maybe Xander should never have resuscitated me that time. Not saying I was ever as tortured as these people." She sighed. "But you know, I did die, and it was great. Peaceful, warm, and I didn't want to come back...and okay, I am so not making my case here." She broke off, frustrated.
"...yeah." Cordy said, eyeing Buffy. "Besides, bringing people back from the dead isn't really comparable to putting people out of their misery. Seriously...I ever start screaming and never stop unless I've screamed myself unconscious? I give you my permission to just put me to sleep. I don't know...I know it's your higher power duty and all of that, but...I don't know. I just don't feel right about it."
Buffy looked down at the stake in her hand and shrugged. "I don't either, seriously. But...she's killing, a lot, and I'm not God and I don't know if she's killing for good or evil. Just...lots of bloodshed and that's what I'm usually supposed to stop."
She glanced at the door up ahead again. "Look, let's just give her the doll, before some crazed orderly comes and locks us both up, huh? And if you start screaming non stop, I will totally put you out of your misery."
"Thanks." Cordy said drily, looking up at the doorway again too. She frowned as she saw that they were being watched. London had been peering out at them the whole time. She waved, then disappeared back into the darkness of the room. Cordy glanced at Buffy to see if she'd noticed or not.
Buffy had been watching Cordy's face, saw her look toward the room in question and frown. "She's there, then? Well, let's get it over with." She started moving in that direction, clutching the stake, and totally unsure of whether or not she could actually send it home. Cordy had a point, a big pointy one, that she didn't want to think about too much.
Cordy followed after Buffy, hurrying around her to get to the door first. She pushed the door in, letting the meager light from the hallway flood into the room. Moonlight strayed in from the window, and London was sitting over in the corner on a pile of filthy blankets. She smiled and waved.
Cordy walked purposefully towards her, putting Buffy on ignore for a moment. She squatted down in front of London, and held out the doll. "Here...I found her for you." she said quietly. She had the urge to reach out and tuck one of the matted strings of London's hair behind her ears, but didn't.
London took the doll and hugged it to her chest, blinking at tears. "Thank you." she said in her hoarse voice. She rocked back and forth, hugging her doll. Her green eyes shone in the light and she smiled up at Cordy then over to Buffy. "All better." she said.
Cordy watched London for a long moment, then did reach out to tuck that hair behind her ear. London smiled at her, and Cordy smiled back, though it was strained. "Goodbye, London." She straightened, and headed back towards Buffy. "I can't watch this." she whispered to the Slayer, and left the room.
Buffy watched as Cordy left, and the girl...London...just sat there, placidly hugging the filthy doll. Oh God, it would be so very hard...
She walked over to her, hiding the stake in her skirts, and went down on one knee in front of her. In a way, she needed to know...what the girl had been doing that night she'd seen her through the crack.
"Hi...London. I saw you a few nights back, with the sobbing woman."
London's attention turned to Buffy, and she smiled, rocking slowing just a little bit. "Mary." she said, nodding. "She was sad. She's free now." she said, then smiled even more brightly. "You saw."
"I did," Buffy acknowledged. "And yes, she was sad, but maybe...she could have gotten better? Not sad?"
This was stupid, she had a killer vamp right in front of her, but she needed to know, how did she choose her victims? It almost seemed like it made sense.
London shook her head mournfully. "No." she said firmly. "She cried all the time. She came here crying and never stopped. She was too sad." she paused, watching Buffy's eyes. "She never stopped." she repeated.
Buffy sighed. She looked at vamp girl clutching her doll and she could hardly imagine tossing her down and dusting her. And then she asked, "Are you sad, too? I'm...I'm special, like you are, sort of. I can send you away, too."
London looked at Buffy for a long time, then glanced towards the hallway where Cordy had dissapeared. She looked like she wanted to say something, then sighed heavily, starting to rock back and forth again. "Do I have to go now?" she asked. "Is it time to sleep?"
Buffy frowned and pulled the stake out and up. "You've done enough, don't you think? It's time."
The girl was obviously tortured herself, it was sort of...well, what she did. Let her sleep.
London looked up at Buffy, then back towards the hallway. "Goodnight Cordy." she called, then turned her green gaze up towards Buffy again. "Goodnight, Buffy." she said, and then she turned herself around, back to Buffy as if to make it easier on the Slayer. She curled herself further into a ball, hugging her doll, and went eerily still.
Buffy watched her turn away, leaving her back wide open. "Goodnight, London," she murmured. She raised the stake, hesitated a minute, then steeled herself. Make it quick, for godsake, she deserves that.
She thrust, but as she did a bright light seemed to blind her. She felt the stake impact something...but she couldn't see what. When it faded, London was gone. She sighed and tucked the stake back into the bib of her apron and went out to join Cordy.
Cordy was leaning against the wall just outside the door, staring hard at the floor, arms crossed over her middle. She didn't look up when Buffy came out. "Let's get out of here." she said quietly.
"Totally with ya on that," Buffy agreed, and followed her.