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Giles had lost count as to how many times
he had paced the hospital corridors, from the waiting room for surgery down the
corridor and into the ER area, where the coffee machine was rapidly becoming
his best friend and relief. Too many times for his liking. Still, the walk was
a welcome distraction to the hours of waiting. So he paced, fetched coffee and
offered shallow words of comfort and reassurance to Mrs Summers as the doctors
did their best with Buffy. It had been a hellish night and he was hoping, as he
refilled his cup with the black sludge that laughingly passed for coffee, that
sunrise in an hour would be the bearer of good news.
"We've got a Jane Doe here," a
paramedic called out, causing Giles to spill the hot coffee over his hand as an
ambulance gurney was wheeled into the relatively empty ER. "Severe blood
loss, pulse is irregular and fading fast, mostly external damage..."
"Geez, what is it freak night or
something?" asked one of the young doctors as he rushed forward, quickly
running a critical eye over the girl and checking responses. "Okay, we
need to get her hooked up and quickly..."
Giles ignored the various medical jargon
and terminology the young man used, he'd heard too much of that already
tonight, instead he turned his attention to the gurney and its bloodied and
tattered charge as it was hastily pushed past him. The coffee fell to the
floor, splattering and staining his trousers as he stared, the blood draining
from his face.
"Willow," murmured Giles as he
recognized the fallen girl, pushing forward and reaching out to her. "Dear
god."
"Sir, please, we need you to step
back," one of the paramedics insisted, holding his arm out to stop the
Watcher from interfering with the gurneys mobility.
"I know her..." he whispered as Willow
and the small team of medics disappeared from view.
"You know her?" the paramedic
asked, safe in the knowledge that his charge was in good hands. With a guiding
hand he led Giles away, back toward the nurses station and front desk.
"She family?"
"No, no, she's a student and, well, a
friend," Giles stated shaking his head in disbelief. This couldn't be
happening, he'd assumed that Buffy had been by herself when she was attacked,
and if the Slayer had been so badly hurt... "Is she going to be alright?"
"I don't know," it wasn't the
reply Giles had been hoping for and he silently cursed, berating himself for
not even checking if she was safe when he'd got the call that Buffy had been
hurt. "The doctors are going to do everything they can. Once she's stabilized
we can go from there."
"Stabilized?" Giles asked.
"She's lost a lot of blood..."
the paramedic turned away from the paling Watcher, speaking quietly to the
young women behind the desk and being handed back a clipboard full of
registration forms.
"Blood," Giles whispered as he
fought the sudden wave of nausea that welled up. "Is there anything I can
do?"
"Name, contact numbers, her parents
need to know that she's here," the clipboard was thrust toward the
exhausted Watcher. "Any information you can give would be a great
help."
"Yes, of course," murmured
Giles, dutifully taking the forms. He forced himself not to think of anything
but the various details needed, even though his hand shook and he was intensely
aware of the sounds in the ER, of the comings and goings in the general
direction they'd taken Willow. Ten minutes later, with a heavy heart, he handed
back the forms, sadly lacking in anything but the most basic of details, and
asked to use the phone to call her parents. All he got was the answering
machine. Rubbing at his tired eyes, Giles wondered exactly where they were, he
vaguely remembered Willow mentioning something about them being away, whether
they were in the States or abroad he couldn't say. For the time being he left a
brief message and hung up, turning back in time to see one of the medical staff
leave the small, enclosed area that hid Willow.
"Excuse me," Giles drew the
man's attention as the white coater approached the clerical desk, the forms
once more exchanging hands. "Is she going to be alright?"
"I can't say," the doctor merely
shook his head as he glanced over the information Giles had given them.
"At the moment we're doing some tests, making sure that there was no
internal damage done."
Giles, if possible, paled even more.
"What about external? I mean, with that much blood lost...what
happened?"
"I don't know what exactly,
sir," the medic turned to Giles and shook his head. "Externally, she
has lacerations covering her back, shoulders and wrists as well as a number of
puncture wounds to her throat..."
"No," murmured Giles as he
closed his eyes, trying to block out the nightmare. "I can't believe this
is happening, first Buffy...oh lord, Mrs Summers...Joyce," he turned his head
to glance back up at the long corridor that he'd walked along so many times.
"She must be frantic by now."
"You're here with the Summers
girl?" the medic asked his brow furrowing in concern as Giles nodded
silently. "Look, leave your name and once we have Ms..." frowning the
medic read from the clipboard he still held. "...Rosenberg settled I'll
send some one up for you."
"That would be..." Giles turned
back to the doctor and for once he was at a lost for words. "Thank
you."
***
"Good morning," Giles greeted,
walking into the room and smiling at the two occupants. "How are you
feeling today, Buffy?"
"Better," she stated, nodding
her head and he wondered whether it was true or not. While she was certainly
looking better than a few days ago, no longer hooked up to various monitoring
machines, she was still far from being her usual self, too quiet and too pale.
There was a vulnerability about her, to look at her in the bed was for Giles to
see the girl and not the Slayer, a girl who'd been so close to death. Smiling,
he dropped his gaze to her hand entwined with her mothers. "How's
Willow?"
"She's doing well," Giles
stated. The short statement was purposely elusive, just as everything he'd told
Buffy about Willow had been.
When Buffy had first regained
consciousness, one of her initial questions had been about Willow and Giles had
simply told her the redhead was also in the hospital. He didn't tell her that
when Willow had woken her disorientation and confusion had quickly escalated
into a fit of hysteria, during which she'd torn the various IV drips from her
wrists and reopened the wounds on her back. Nor that since then she'd remained
heavily sedated, carefully arranged on her side, supported and surrounded by a
soft barrier of pillows to prevent her from rolling onto her injured back.
Neither did he tell Buffy about the medical reports that he'd seen briefly, nor
the overheard conversations between medical staff and the Sunnydale police,
littered with the word rape, mentions of a ritualistic cleansing and traces of
alcohol in what little blood she'd been left with. No, those were the things
that Buffy didn't need to know at the moment. Later, when both the girls had
physically recovered, then he felt that would be the time to reveal the true
horrors of the night.
Until then, vague sentences and forced
smiles were the best thing.
"When is she coming to see me?"
Buffy asked and her mother squeezed her hand.
"When you're stronger, dear,"
Joyce answered for the exhausted Watcher, giving her daughter a bright smile.
"Until then the best thing to do is rest and later you two can terrorize
the nursing staff together. Maybe," she glanced over at Giles. "We
could organize for both of you to have a room together."
"Perhaps," Giles replied
vaguely, even though he knew that was impossible. Within a matter of hours of
Willow's admittance into the hospital, she'd been transferred to a private ward
and Giles had been told that under her doctor's instructions, with parental
approval, her visitors were to be limited. Each evening, he would trek across
the hospital to the private wards and sit, watching while she slept,
reluctantly leaving an hour later when the nurse insisted. Giles had thought it
best for both the girls to be in the same room, however the suggestion, when
put forward, was turned down flat with the hospital administration stating that
Ms Rosenberg had been placed in the private wards at the insistence of her
family. And Giles was not family, merely a friend, which is why his visitation
rights were restricted as was the information he'd managed to collect.
Giles sighed and glanced once more at the
blonde, looking so small and pale in the hospital bed, as she spoke softly to
her mother. Perhaps Buffy, with such a swift but damaging attack, had been lucky.
Only time would tell exactly what atrocities Willow had suffered during her
ordeal.
"You look tired, Buffy," Giles
stated with another forced smile. "Perhaps you should get some
sleep."
"Maybe," Buffy closed her eyes
briefly. "I keep...dreaming about it. It's nothing more than a
nightmare."
***
The nightmare was continual for Willow.
Sedation may have stilled her physical
struggles but not so her mind. There was no solid time for her, it wandered in patterns
of light and sound. Sometimes there were voices, raising above the constant
buzz that filled her ears, forming words before dropping back down to drone on
with the sounds of the hospital. Sounds were accompanied by glaringly bright
light while shapes of white and muted brown moved about. And, of course, there
were the distinctive scents that moved with the hours of the days. The strong
disinfectant stench that seemed to be ingrained in all hospitals was often
overwhelmed by the rich perfume of fresh flowers, eventually fading with the
bustle and bright lights into the smell of old medicines, leather and
cigarettes.
Those first few days, when the hallways
fell relatively silent and dark, she could hear him, an Angel telling stories
in a foreign tongue. The words, though foreign, were familiar and created a
mystical place filled with faeries, magical creatures and old world charm. But
as that voice filled her mind and the words wrapped about her, the pain would
become almost unbearable with an unrelenting pressure on her back, she would
choke on her screams and the liquids that were forced down her throat. Then, as
the pain numbed, the words would fade and the general bustle of the hospital
would drown everything out.
Eventually the nightmare began to fade
into daylight hours, the brightness flowing through the large window in her
private room, falling across her bed and the fresh flowers that were left every
night. During those long daylight hours the room was empty, she was left alone
to drift in and out of consciousness, the level of sedative was significantly
reduced during the day but stepped up again by mid afternoon so by early
evening she was sleeping soundly. With the darkness the nightmare would return,
only to soften and become a surreal dream of words and caresses.
There were things missing, Willow realized
that as she was slowly released from her drug induced stupor. The heavy gold
necklace no longer adorned her neck, instead her throat was covered with a
cotton gauze bandage and she found herself clawing and scratching at it. When
she demanded the necklaces return the nursing staff said it was missing, that
it had never been brought in with her. The panic she felt at that revelation
was overwhelming, a fear that rose up from the pit of her stomach and spread
through her ~ like the blood in her veins had turned to ice. Without the
necklace she felt naked, lost, almost like she'd been abandoned. The necklace
was everything.
Her nights were also missing. They became
little more than a fantastical world fuelled by the dark timbre voice weaving
tales. That was the one constant in her dreams, the voice ~ sometimes it seemed
to stay with her all night and other times it was just a brief interlude in the
darkness.
And when she'd wake she was always alone.
When she asked about her friends and
parents the questions were shrugged off or blatantly ignored. It was five days
before she found out that Buffy was in fact alive, a slip of the tongue by one
of the younger nurses, and that her friend was still a patient and Willow
demanded to see her. It was a demand that was easily met and late afternoon
found her happily ensconced in a wheelchair, being ferried about by an orderly.
As they made their way down one of the hospitals many hallways, Willow heard a
familiar voice in the midst of telling some lame joke.
"Wait," Willow instructed the
orderly as laughter came from a room across the wide corridor. The door was
wide open, giving her a clear view of the room's occupants.
They were all there, gathered about Buffy
who was sitting up in bed, bright and happy. Xander was making jokes and eating
the various bits of junk and comfort food that had been snuck in for the
Slayer, while Cordelia was perched on the end of the bed, flipping through one
of the many glossy magazines that littered the bedside table. Seated on either
side of the bed were Giles and Mrs Summers, chatting and smiling. Everything
was bright and happy, everyone in their place, gathered in a tight circle
around a blissfully happy Buffy. There was a disorganized chaos in the merry
little scene before her, the comfortable way they were all lolling about and
the number of discarded candy wrappers and magazines scattered about suggested
they'd all been there for hours.
And Willow was alone in the hallway. She'd
been alone for days and couldn't recall having visitors, there'd been no phone
calls from either her friends or her parents.
"I want to go back to my room,"
she murmured, closing her eyes and turning away from the happy group. When the
wheelchair remained motionless, she lost her patience. "Now!"
The word, impatiently snapped out, didn't
attract the attention of anyone in the room, the acoustics didn't allow it to
and Willow was silently wheeled back to her room. A room that was empty and
silent and far too bright for the headache that was growing with every beat of
her heart. Despondently, she climbed back into her bed, sparingly requesting
that the blinds be pulled and that she be left alone.
And she was.
For four hours she remained in her room,
solitarily silent and sullen, undisturbed until a nurse bustled in bringing
with her a suit bag and other bits and pieces...amongst which was a black
velvet jewelry box containing the heavy gold Celtic knot-work necklace. An hour
later, when Giles made his trek to see her, the room was empty.
"I'm sorry sir," the nurse on
duty smiled up at Giles. "Miss Rosenberg has been discharged."
"What?" Giles asked, startled by
her sudden disappearance. "When?"
"You just missed her," the nurse
offered. "A car was sent for and I believe she's on her way to the airport
to join her father."
"Oh, well, I see," frowned
Giles. "Thank you."
***
"Angelus?"
"Yes, darlin'?" he asked, idly
flicking through the in-flight magazine, wondering what psychologically
disturbed idiot came up with the mindless dribble held within.
"Are my parents dead?"
"Yes," he answered, turning to
fix his eyes on her, the shadow of a smile hinting at his lips. The garbled
welcome of the airhostesses voice was lost over the rushing of her blood as
Willow held his gaze and the magazine was tossed aside.
"How long?"
"For longer than you could have
possibly imagined..." he waited, watching the green eyes that were glassy
from medication rather than tears. She was silent for a moment, not moving
until she blinked once and flinched slightly as she dropped her eyes down to
break the gaze. Still, there were no tears, although he wasn't really expecting
any.
"I see," Willow stated softly,
turning away and leaning back against the seat as the aircraft gathered speed.
She couldn't remember the last time she'd spoken to her parents or seen them.
Truth be told, she'd locked them away in her mind a long time ago and they'd
become nothing more than a faded memory of a life that no longer existed,
almost as faded as the shattered images of her friends. Their deaths were
insignificant to the daughter they'd produced, a daughter who stared into the
dark night and couldn't mourn the loss.
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