<><><><><><><><>

WEDNESDAY, 12:15 A.M.


Joyce burst through the hospital doors, wide-eyed and tense but controlled.  Cool night breezes blew in with her, dissipating the odors of medicine and fear lingering in the air of the Emergency Room.  Giles hurried over to meet her.  

"How is she?"  Vaguely she noted the group beyond him - Riley, hunkered down, leaning back against a nearby wall, with Willow, Xander and Anya standing around him, all looking her way with anxiety plain on their faces.

"I only know that she was unconscious when they brought her in and that they're working to stabilize her," Giles said, his quiet voice edged with tension and worry - and bitterness.  "They won't tell me anything else; I'm not family."  

"Well, I am."  With that, Joyce marched over to the admittance desk.  Giles stayed put, watching her intently. "I'm Joyce Summers.  My daughter was brought in a little while ago."

The woman in attendance glanced down at a list on her desk.  "Buffy Summers?"  When Joyce nodded she picked up a phone and spoke into it briefly, then turned a sympathetic smile on Joyce.  "Dr. Martinez will be out in just a minute, Mrs. Summers.  He's the doctor who's treating your daughter."

"Thank you."  Joyce walked over to the group over by the wall.  "Riley, what happened?  You were together, weren't you?"  Giles silently rejoined them.

"We were patrolling," the young man said, his voice dull.  "Five vampires ambushed us.  She staked two of them and started for the third one.  It ran and she went after it, but . . . I'm not sure exactly what happened, but I heard her cry out just as I zapped the remaining vamp.  I think she tripped or something because when I found her she was lying next to this big rock and there was blood on her head.  She was unconscious, so I called 911 and they brought her here."  

He looked up at Joyce.  "They won't tell us anything."

Just then the inner doors of the ER slid open.  A short, brown-haired, brown-skinned man walked through into the waiting room, his tired, drawn face testimony to the lateness of the hour.  His dark eyes swept over the group, then fastened on Joyce as the only possibly candidate.  "Mrs. Summers?"  

"Yes."  Joyce stepped forward.  "How is Buffy?"  Riley scrambled to his feet, staring at the man with hope and dread written all over his face, expressions mirrored by everyone.

The doctor hesitated, glancing at the group.  "Would you prefer somewhere more private?"  Pleading gazes swung over to Joyce; Giles tightened his lips.  

"No," Joyce answered firmly.  "These are my daughter's friends . . . no, they're more than friends.  They're as much a part of her family as I am."

Giles cleared his throat, obviously touched by her statement.  Joyce had come a long way from the time when she blamed him for putting Buffy in danger and for keeping her life as the Slayer a secret from her.

"Very well," Dr. Martinez acquiesced.  "Your daughter is still unconscious.  Apparently she hit her head on a rock, resulting in what we believe is only a minor fracture to her skull.  We've got her stabilized for the moment  but we need to make sure that the fractured area isn't pressing on her brain and that the bleeding inside the cranium has stopped.  I want to take X-rays and do an MRI scan."

"Of course; do whatever it takes," Joyce responded.  She took a shaky breath.  "Doctor, what if there is pressure on the brain, or she's still bleeding?  What happens then?"

"In either one of those cases there's always the possibility that we may have to perform surgery," the doctor told her.  "But let's not cross that bridge unless we have to.  First let me see what the tests show, then I'll discuss options with you."  

Joyce nodded.  "May I see her?"

"Only for a minute."  The doctor's voice was kind.  "We'll be taking her up to X-Ray very soon."

Joyce hesitated, then turned to Giles.  "Rupert, would you like to come with me?"  Giles looked at her in surprise, then blinked rapidly, swallowed, and said, hoarsely, "Yes.  Yes, I would.  Thank you."  

Riley started to say something, but Willow touched his arm and gave him a look, shaking her head, and he subsided with the words unsaid, although his eyes followed Joyce and Giles yearningly as they entered the treatment area.

The two followed the doctor into a small cubicle where Buffy lay, almost as white as the sheets and blanket covering her.  A bag of saline solution dangled from a tall pole beside her, its liquid dripping through a long tube into a vein in the back of her right hand, and wires ran from her body to various monitors where lights danced across screens in rhythm to blips and beeps familiar to anyone who watched TV.  An ugly, jagged cut two inches long, bristling with sutures, marked the left side of her head, nakedly revealed by the large circle shaved around it.  Bruise marks were already spreading outward from the wound onto her face.  

Joyce made a smothered sound.  Tears sprang to her eyes, but she steadied herself and went forward.  "Buffy?"  She approached one side of the bed; Giles went around to the other.  "Honey, I'm here.  I don't know if you can hear me, but you've been hurt and you're in the hospital.  But don't worry; the doctors are taking good care of you."  

She put her hand over Buffy's, mindful of the tube snaking from it, and gave it a slight squeeze.  Two tears trailed silently down her cheeks.

Giles cleared his throat and took her other hand.  "Buffy, it's me.  Giles.  We're all here, you know.  Willow, Xander, Riley . . . even Anya.  You just concentrate on getting better."  He turned his head as footsteps approached.  A nurse and two orderlies entered the cubicle, pushing a gurney between them.  "They're taking you to get X-rays now, so I'll see you later."  He hesitated, then leaned forward and kissed her forehead.

Joyce also kissed her daughter again.  "I'll see you in a little while, honey.  I love you."  With one last backward glance at the motionless form in the bed, they went back to the waiting room.  "Does anyone know where the pay phone is?  I need to call her father."

Xander looked at her strangely.  "It's, uh, right here."  He turned his head; there, unmistakably, less than a foot away, was a telephone kiosk.  Joyce gazed at it blankly.  "Oh.  Yes.  Thank you, Xander."  She dug in her purse for her calling card as everyone politely moved away to give her some privacy.

"Giles," said Willow very quietly.  "Will Buffy be all right?"

"She's alive and her vital signs are stable," Giles replied steadily.  "Those are encouraging signs.  And as you know, Slayers possess amazing healing powers.  Yes, I believe Buffy will come through this."

They fell silent.  A few minutes later Joyce rejoined them.  "He'll be here in a couple of hours," she told them.  "We should know more by then."  

Again silence fell.  Riley found a chair and sat, leaning forward, arms braced on his thighs, hands clasped between his knees, staring at the floor.  He looked as if he were praying.  Willow and Giles left in search of coffee; Xander and Anya moved back to the wall.  It was almost an hour before Dr. Martinez made another appearance.  He looked even more exhausted than he had earlier, but he smiled at Joyce as she rose from the small couch.

"Mrs. Summers, I have good news.  The fracture is only a hairline; there doesn't appear to be any pressure onto the brain; and the bleeding inside the skull has definitely stopped.  This significantly reduces the probability of lasting brain damage."

"Thank God."  Joyce buried her face in her hands.

Dr. Martinez continued.  "However, it's still possible that Buffy may experience some *temporary* - " he stressed the word, " - memory loss or other mental or physical impairment.  We'll simply have to wait until she wakes up and see."

"When will that be?"  Xander wanted to know.

The doctor shook his head.  "There's no way of knowing; every case of head trauma is individual and unique.  A few patients regain consciousness in only a few hours; others take days or even weeks.  In Buffy's case, with only a hairline fracture, I would not expect this condition to last beyond forty-eight hours."

"But the quicker she comes out of it, the better, yes?"  Giles asked.

"Well," the doctor admitted.  "I'll certainly be happier if she wakes up by Friday.  *But* - " he held up a finger for emphasis  " - that doesn't mean we should despair if she doesn't."

"When can I see her?" Joyce demanded.

"I want to keep her in ICU for a few more hours, just to make sure she continues to be stable," the doctor told her.  "Only immediate family are allowed - "

Joyce interrupted.  "I already told you, this is her family.  She's closer to Mr. Giles here than she is to her own father, who, by the way, is on his way from Los Angeles."

"I'm not family," blurted Anya.  "But that's okay; I don't like hospitals anyway.  Or sick people.  So I don't need to see her."

This statement was so typically Anya that it caused only a slight rolling of eyes; otherwise, the gang ignored it.  The doctor, however, looked somewhat taken aback.  He blinked in confusion for a moment, then obviously decided to ignore the blunt statement.  "Uh, yes.  Very well, Mrs. Summers, I'll permit her friends to go in also.  But only for a few minutes."

Riley was the first to enter Buffy's cubicle.  His eyes flew to her pale face.  Swallowing hard, he picked up the hand not encumbered with the IV tube.  It took him a minute to get his voice under control.  "Hey there."  It came out as a whisper.  "You look a lot better than you did earlier.  Well, except for that big bald spot on your head, but at least they cleaned you up.  You're not all bloody now."

He managed a faint smile, but it immediately vanished.  "I hate seeing you like this, Buffy.  You're so pale and, and quiet.  I can't get used to not hearing your voice.  I don't mean that you're a chatterbox or anything; I mean . . . well, you know what I mean.  God, when I heard you cry out, and then I saw you lying there on the ground . . . I think my heart stopped.  I thought you were - "

He had to stop for a second.  "Well, never mind that; I was wrong, thank God.  You're going to be fine; the doctor said so.  So just rest now and get your strength back.  That's an order, soldier.  I want to take you back to Iowa one of these days and show you off to my folks, so you see you have to get better."  

One of the nurses poked her head inside.  "Excuse me."  Riley turned.  "I'm sorry, but your time is up."  Her voice was kind but her firm expression told him it would do no good to protest.  Sighing, he turned back to the bed.  "They're making me go now.  Wake up soon, Buffy, please."  

He kissed her forehead just as Xander and Willow came in.  The three exchanged glances as Riley left, then the two friends arranged themselves beside the bed, one on each side.  

Xander grimaced at the sight of the wound on her head.  "Ouch, that looks really nasty.  No wonder she's out cold."

"Xander."  Willow frowned at him.  "Just because she's unconscious doesn't mean she can't hear us - or see us, even.  How do we know, maybe she's floating around somewhere over this bed right now."

"What?  You mean like that babe in the Ghostbusters movie?  The one that unzipped Dan Aykroyd's pants?"  Xander squinted above Buffy's bed as if trying to see a transparent floating figure.

The redhead gave him a Look.  "You know what I mean: we should talk *to* Buffy, not *about* her like she's not even here."  Turning once more to her unconscious friend she said, "Buffy, we can only stay a moment before they kick us out.  We just wanted to say that we love you and we know you're fighting to come out of this."

"Yeah," Xander agreed.  "The doc says the bleeding has stopped and everything looks good.  So you rest now and when you wake up you'll be Slay Girl again, just like usual."


SUNDAY AFTERNOON

About to enter Buffy's room, Dr. Martinez found himself waylaid just outside the door.  "What's going on?" Joyce confronted him.  "Why hasn't Buffy woken up?"

The doctor shook his head.  "I don't know, Mrs. Summers; I wish I did.  Her vital signs continue to be good.  The X-ray we took yesterday showed that the fracture is healing at an amazing rate of speed, and there doesn't appear to be any physical trauma to the brain."

"But she's still unconscious," Anya declared.  "That's not a good sign."  Xander glared at her, but before he could say anything the ex-demon continued, "It's obvious that we need to talk to her.  At least, I don't but all of you do.  You're her friends.  She loves you and you love her, though I don't understand why since all she's ever done is put you all in danger and then save you from it."

"Anya."  Willow's eyes indicated the doctor, standing next to her, listening with a puzzled expression.

"Oh.  Sorry."  The former vengeance demon actually looked somewhat abashed at her slip of the tongue.

"Danger?"  Dr. Martinez looked at her quizzically.  

Anya rallied quickly.  "Oh, not *real* danger.  Only pretend danger.  I mean, you know, it's not like she held a gun to anyone's head and forced them to go on that stupid roller coaster last month.  I just don't like heights."  She gave him a weak smile.

"Oh."  Dr. Martinez blinked dazedly, a not uncommon reaction to Anya's off-the-wall remarks.  "Uh . . . well, anyway, you were right about what you said."

Anya looked pleased.  

"Studies have proven that often someone who seems to be unconscious is able to hear what is being said around them.  So I would recommend that you take turns staying with her, and just talk to her."

"Talk?  What about?" Xander asked blankly.

"Anything.  Everything."  The doctor's glasses glinted as he turned to the young man.  "Remind her about past times - the good times, that is."

"Good times.  Oh, yeah, like staking vampires and fighting Frankenstein monsters and averting Apocalypses," Xander murmured sotto voce to Willow.  She elbowed him sharply.  "Ow!"

"Talk about your friendship," continued the doctor.  "Things you've done together, any future plans you might have made with her - you know, like going on vacation together or something."

"I can do that," Riley said with determination.  "No problem."  His boyish face showed the strain of the past few days.

"Me too," Willow piped up.  "We were planning to go to see a play in L.A. this summer."

Dr. Martinez nodded.  "That's exactly the kind of thing I mean.  We need to give her a reason to wake up."

"Dr. Martinez," Joyce said slowly. ""Are you saying that you think Buffy doesn't want to wake up?"

The doctor hesitated.  "Mrs. Summers, maybe I'm wrong but I get the distinct impression that your daughter's been under a lot of stress lately.  She's seriously underweight, for one thing, but I somehow don't think she has an eating disorder."

"Not an intentional one, anyway," Joyce agreed.  "But you're right, Buffy hasn't been eating well lately, and she has had a lot of stress this past year."  She paused, considering.  "Actually, make that the last couple of years."

"I believe we can stretch that to the three year mark," Giles put in quietly.

"Yeah, " Xander muttered, his expression grim.  "Thanks to Soul Boy's antics."

"That was four years ago and he wasn't Soul Boy at the time," Willow reminded him.  "Which was the whole problem, but anyway it wasn't his fault.  He didn't know about the loophole; nobody knew about it.  Well, except the Kalderash gypsies."

Listening, Dr. Martinez experienced a sensation he'd had all too frequently of late - ever since Buffy Summers had been wheeled into the ER, in fact.  Not only was she herself a puzzle, with her fracture that was healing at a phenomenal rate he would have sworn was impossible, but never had he encountered such a strange and baffling group of people, not even during his internship in New York City or his years of practicing medicine in San Francisco, both of which cities prided themselves on the eccentricity of their inhabitants.

Giles interrupted the squabbling pair.  "Never mind that now."  He looked at Dr. Martinez.  "So you think that Buffy has, er, escaped into herself, so to speak . . . that, in essence, she's had a sort of nervous breakdown."

"Well . . ." Dr. Martinez hesitated.  "Well, yes, I guess you could put it like that.  There certainly is no physical reason that we can detect for her continuing to be unconscious.  And believe me, we've run every test there is."

"Wait," Riley suddenly recalled.  "When Buffy was first admitted, I thought you said it could sometimes take days or even weeks for someone to regain consciousness."

"Yes," Dr. Martinez allowed.  "That's true - but not with a fracture as minor as this one.  So since there is no apparent physiological cause for her condition, I have to wonder if it isn't a psychological one."

"I'm willing to give it a try," Riley declared.  He glanced a little awkwardly at Joyce.  "Do you mind if I go in to her now?"

Joyce smiled.  "Go ahead, Riley.  I'll relieve you in an hour."

Riley smiled back in thanks.  Pushing the door open enough to admit him, he swung it almost closed behind him and went over to Buffy.  He pulled the chair over next to the bed and sat down.  Buffy's arms rested across the coverlet, and he reached over and picked up one hand, chafing it with his thumb.  Its almost skeletal thinness caught at his heart.  He looked at her face, seeing how sunken her features had become.

"I remember the first time I saw you," he murmured.  "It was the first or second day of school, in the university library; do you remember?  You knocked those books off the shelf onto my head, and you were so embarrassed and flustered.  Did I ever tell you how cute you are when you're flustered?"

He gave a faint chuckle.  "Probably not; ‘cute' and ‘slayer' don't really go together, do they?  Then, later on, I saw you in the cafeteria.  You broke the handle on the ice cream machine, and I remember thinking, ‘What a klutz.'  Boy, was I wrong."  He smiled a little.

"I'm not sure when I started really noticing you as a person instead of just someone who was always dropping things and stammering out inane remarks.  One day I looked at you in class and suddenly realized how beautiful you are.  And your class papers that I graded showed that you were really smart too.  Then all of a sudden it seemed as if our paths were always crossing.  Every place I went, there you were too.  And I couldn't get you out of my mind, Buffy, especially after we started dating.  I've never fallen for anyone this hard and fast before.  There's a phrase I remember hearing my father use: blonde bombshell.  That's how I felt, like I'd been hit by a blonde bombshell named Buffy Summers."

Riley smiled again.  "Or maybe Hurricane Buffy is more like it.  An unstoppable force of nature that gathers up everything in its path and sweeps them along with it."  Then he shook his head.  "No.  That's not it.  Hurricanes leave only devastation behind, and that's not true of you.  You battle the forces of destruction, you don't cause it.

"When everything happened with the Initiative . . . when Maggie tried to have you killed and then when they captured Oz and tortured him . . . when I finally realized that they weren't the guys in white hats I'd believed in, it was like my world shattered.  I didn't know who to trust, except you.  I didn't even know who I was anymore.  So much of my identity was bound up with the Initiative . . . I was lost and scared, but at least I wasn't alone.  You were there for me, just like I'm here for you now."

He pressed her hand to his lips.  "I love you, Buffy, and I'm going to bring you back to me.  To us.  I'd hoped you could take a little vacation with me this summer back to Iowa to meet my folks.  I hadn't asked you yet because . . . well, the time just never seemed right, what with Adam and the Initiative, but I was going to, soon.

"You'll like my folks, I think, and I know they'll love you.  How could anyone not love you?  And you should see the farm in the summer; it's so beautiful."

<><><><><><><><>

Buffy opened her eyes.  The leaves of the huge oak she lay beneath filtered the sun's rays and dappled her face with shadows.  She stretched lazily and blinked up at the sky where high white clouds scudded across the dazzling blue.  God, it felt good to be able to take a nap whenever she wanted!  She felt as if she hadn't slept in years.  Well, she hadn't, not really.  What with patrolling and school and homework, not to mention her tumultuous love life, she'd been short on sleep pretty much ever since she was Called as the Slayer, five years ago.

How long had she been here, she wondered vaguely as she had numerous times before, upon awakening.  And for that matter, where exactly was "here"?  The last thing she remembered was . . . fighting vamps.  Of course; what else would she be doing?  And Riley was there with her . . . somewhere.  

As usual the elusive memory slipped away before she could grasp it.  She yawned.  Oh well, it would come to her sooner or later.  A soft breeze swept over the countryside, stirring the foliage overhead.  Mingled with their rustling came a faint murmurous sound, almost like voices.  Buffy smiled drowsily, picturing tiny mouths on each green leaf, and slipped back into slumber.

"You were there for me, just like I'm here for you now.  I love you, Buffy, and I'm going to bring you back to me.  To us.