Monday, February 7^th, 2005 (6 days after the flying werewolf attack):

“We can’t get the infection under control,” the doctor was explaining solemnly to Giles, Riley, and Dawn that Monday morning.

It had been about a week since Buffy had been attacked by the werewolf in her dream and the doctors were doing all they could, but it wasn’t enough. They had used a pound of surgical screws to put her shattered bones back together – and more stitches than anyone could count to repair her flesh and tendons. If her bones didn’t heal properly, they may need to take a bone graft from her leg … but right now the big problem was the bacterial infection.

“We need to wake her up,” Dawn insisted for the hundredth time over the last few days.

“She’s in too much pain,” the doctor explained to her again, an edge of impatience in his voice. “If we take her out of the drug-induced coma, she may very well go into shock and die.”

“If you don’t wake her up and get her away from whatever’s causing her infection she’s gonna die!” Dawn exclaimed, throwing her hands up in frustration. Why couldn’t anyone else see this?  Buffy’s healing powers should be able to fight the infection – the doctors had cleaned and disinfected the wound – they’d spent hours repairing the damage as best they could, they were pumping her full of strong antibiotics, and yet she was getting worse.

“Thank you, Dr. Dawn,” Riley replied sarcastically. “Why don’t we just let the doctors do their jobs?” he continued with a stern look. “Last I checked you were a freshman in college – studying dead languages, not medicine,” Riley pointed out, before turning his back on her and starting to talk with the doctor again.

Dawn growled and fumed out of the small consultation room they were in and down the hall, back towards Buffy’s room.  Dawn had kept vigil with Buffy since the attack, afraid that more might come, but none ever did.  Buffy would talk in her drug-induced sleep – often to her imaginary husband, Spike, but other than a stray word here and there, Dawn couldn’t make sense out of what she said.

Dawn plopped down heavily in the chair beside Buffy’s bed and dropped her face in her hands. They were killing her sister. Maybe not on purpose (although she wasn’t sure about that, either), but they were killing her, just the same. Dawn took a deep breath and brushed her long hair back from her face as she looked up at Buffy, lying on her good side, motionless in the bed. She had an IV in her hand, an oxygen tube running under her nose, and numerous monitors stuck to her body under the thin hospital gown. Buffy’s whole body was flushed with fever, sweating and shivering at the same time, and the wound oozed so much greenish pus that they had given up trying to keep bandages on it. The nurses cleaned it several times a day, changing her bed linens as well, but it still didn’t improve.

“I’ll get you out of here, Buffy … I promise,” Dawn whispered to her unconscious sister. “I won’t let you down again.”

**~**

“Spike?” Buffy called weakly as she tried to sit up on the cold sand floor of the cave, but she got no answer. She looked over to the entrance, the rock that Spike rolled in front of it when he was inside was still there. That could mean only one thing, he’d been taken back to the gates of hell for questioning.

Buffy didn’t know how long she’d been asleep this time or even how long it had been since she’d been attacked, but she knew she was getting weaker and they had long ago run out of anything clean they could use for dressings on her wounds.  When she asked Spike how it looked he simply said, ‘not good,’ but Buffy knew that it was much worse than ‘not good.’  She could practically feel the bacteria multiplying by the minute, she was freezing and burning up at the same time, and bright red lines radiated down her arm – a sign that the infection was spreading.

Spike had been taken away several times since she’d been here – each time it seemed like he was gone longer and longer (although time was extremely difficult to judge here – each moment seemed very much the same as the one before and the one that followed) and each time he came back he was weaker and more despondent than the time before. He tried to keep a brave face for her, but Buffy could feel his anguish and guilt as all his past sins were revisited, shown to him in 3-D and living color.

At his insistence, Buffy had tried time and again to wake up and leave this dimension, which they had both come to call ‘limbo’, but to no avail. She couldn’t wake up, she couldn’t get out and, the way things were going, she’d be facing her own judgment day and trials very soon, because she was sure that she was dying.

Buffy lay back down on the cold sand floor of the cave and closed her eyes.  Her tears had run dry long ago, but if she could, she would cry a river for all that had been stolen from them.  She had to figure out a way to get back, to wake up – although she didn’t want to leave Spike here alone, it was only back in the ‘real world’, or what passed for the real world now, that she had any chance of fixing this.

Suddenly, Spike reappeared next to her. He rolled across the floor and crashed against the far wall of the cave with a hard thud, as if he’d been thrown by something much larger than himself.  Spike moaned and held his ribs as he tried to sit up and get his bearings.

“Spike!” Buffy exclaimed, crawling on her knees and one hand over to him.

“Buffy…” Spike moaned as he sat half doubled-over in pain from hitting the wall with such force.

“Oh God, baby…” Buffy cried as she reached him and laid her hand on his shoulder. She wished she could take his pain away – not so much the physical pain, although she would certainly take that, but the mental pain, the emotional pain that was being inflicted on him during these trials.

Spike wrapped an arm around her and laid his head on her good shoulder and just sobbed against her. “I’m a bad, bad man…”

“No…no, Spike – you’re not. You’re a good man, you’re a good father, a good friend – a good husband,” Buffy assured him as the tears she thought had run dry began to dampen her eyes again.

Spike laughed maniacally, lifting his head up to look at her. “Do you know how much blood you can drink from a girl before she'll die? I do. You see, the trick is to drink just enough to know how to damage them just enough so that they'll still cry when you…”

“Spike, stop,” Buffy told him, laying her fingers on his lips. “That wasn’t you; it wasn’t your fault.”

Spike dropped his head again and shook it slowly from side to side. “No one else. Just me … Can you forgive me? Can you ever forgive me?” Spike pleaded, lifting his head back and looking into her eyes – his eyes held so much pain, so much guilt, Buffy’s heart felt like it was being wrenched from her body.

Buffy shook her head slowly. “There’s nothing to forgive.

“Spike, remember what you told me? It was Dru that turned you, but Angelus turned you into the monster? Remember that?  Tell them about Angelus!” Buffy admonished him.

“Window dressing!” Spike shook his head slowly as he hung his head down in defeat. “Dru’s been through … waits behind the gates, she does.  Angelus’ time will come. No excuses … no more lies – no hiding behind mummy’s apron strings.  Angelus taught me, but he didn’t make me enjoy it.”

Spike looked back up and met her eyes. “Buffy … I enjoyed it. I sought it out! The rush, the feeling of life flowing out of the innocents and into me was …” Spike stopped and sighed deeply. “God, so many innocents,” Spike whimpered as tears threatened his eyes. Spike closed his eyes and pressed his palms against them to try and stop the tears, but every time he closed his eyes he saw what the angels had shown him during the trials, all his sins – what he had to answer for.

“Spike, that wasn’t you – it was the demon! Can’t they understand that? How can they judge you for what the demon did!? Tell them it wasn’t you!” Buffy argued.

“They don’t care…no difference here … soul in, soul out – like fireflies, no matter.  Look up, look down…voices all around – do you hear them?” Spike asked her, lowering his hands away from his face and looking at her with wide, frightened eyes.

“No, baby – I can’t hear them…” Buffy whispered.

“No worries…just ghosts…ghosts can’t hurt, safe as houses, we are,” Spike babbled, looking around the cave for unseen spirits.

“Everybody's in here, talking. Everything I did...everyone I -- and him... and it... the other, the thing beneath -- beneath you. It's here too. Everybody. They all just tell me go... go... to hell,” Spike moaned, leaning back against her and sobbing against her shoulder.

“Oh, Spike, no…” Buffy whispered, wrapping her good arm around him and stroking his bare back softly, trying to give him some comfort.

Suddenly, Spike jumped up and started pacing back and forth across the floor of the cave and reciting a nonsensical poem that Buffy had never heard before.

“One bright day in the middle of the night,

Two dead boys got up to fight.

“Back-to-back they faced one another,

Drew their swords and shot each other.

“One was blind and the other couldn't see,

So they chose a dummy for a referee.

“A blind man went to see fair play,

 dumb man went to shout "hooray!"

“A deaf policeman heard the noise,

And came and shot the two dead boys.

“A paralyzed donkey walking by,

Kicked the copper in the eye,

“Sent him through a rubber wall,

Into a dry ditch and drowned them all!”

Spike dropped back down to his knees in front of her, his eyes wide and wild. “Don’t you see? Won’t be long now … the dead boys will fight – all the boys drown in sorrows down there. Soul in, soul out – no matter now.”

Buffy let out a long breath – he was getting worse and worse every time he came back from these inquisitions and, hard as she tried, she couldn’t go with him. He would just vanish and be gone without warning. They could be talking or he’d be holding her and he’d just fade away.

“Ca-Can--can we rest now? Buffy ... can we rest?” Spike asked her tiredly, slumping heavily against her and wrapping his arms around her.

Buffy winced in pain when his arm fell across her mangled shoulder. She held her breath and closed her eyes a moment to keep from screaming out. When he was like this he didn’t remember her shoulder was hurt … he was barely lucid.

“Yes, baby … we can rest now, just rest,” Buffy assured him after a few moments, wrapping her good arm around his waist and holding him against her.

“I love you, Spike,” Buffy whispered against his ear as she laid both of them down on the cold sand floor of the cave.

Spike drew his knees up into a fetal position as he cuddled tightly against Buffy. “She shall look on him with forgiveness, and everybody will forgive and love. He will be loved. So everything's okay, right?” he asked her, his voice sounding as exhausted as his body felt.

“Yes, baby … everything’s okay,” Buffy assured him as she tucked his head under her chin and stroked his arm gently. “I love you. Everything’s okay…” she repeated softly before dropping a kiss on top of his head.

Buffy held Spike close and softly sang against his ear until he fell into a restless sleep…

“♫Early one morning, just as the sun was rising,
I heard a maid sing in the valley below:
"Oh don't deceive me, Oh never leave me,
How could you use a poor maiden so?”

It was the only thing she’d found that soothed him in these times after the trials. Buffy closed her eyes to hold back the river of tears that threatened to wash them both away; she had to fix this … she had no idea how, but she just had to.

**~**

Early morning hours, Thursday, February 10^th, 2005:

Several empty dinner trays clattered to the floor in the deserted hallway of the hospital. Dawn and Andrew quickly ran across the hall and into a closet away from the noise.

“Jesus Christ, Andrew!” Dawn exclaimed in a stage whisper. “We’re supposed to be sneaking in … not waking the goddamn dead here!”

“Sorry…” Andrew whispered back. “I’ve never been very good at sneaking…”

Dawn rolled her eyes before cracking the door open to look out and see if any of the third shift staff had come to investigate the noise, but she didn’t see anyone.

“Ok – just please pretend that you’re stealthy, alright? Like a … church mouse – quiet as a church mouse, got it?” Dawn suggested to Andrew and he nodded solemnly.

When Dawn opened the closet door and started to step out, Andrew grabbed her arm and pulled her back in.

“Can I be a vampire, instead?” he asked in a whisper. “They’re quiet. Mice they … they kind of scare me,” Andrew admitted with a shudder. “They’re always spreading plagues and leaving raisins all over the place – those raisins don’t taste very good, either. Tucker always told me they were good, but…,” Andrew explained, scrunching his nose up and making a face.

Dawn rolled her eyes again and let out a long breath. “You’re scared of mice but not vampires?”

Andrew straightened up and thrust his shoulders back. “I’ve completed seven of the ten levels of competency for becoming a Watcher,” he announced in a quiet voice. “I fear no vampyre … they fear me!”

“Oh, brother,” Dawn moaned. “Fine – you be a vampire … a very quiet, non-violent, stealthy vampire. C’mon,” she said as she opened the door and stepped out into the hallway.

Andrew followed Dawn down the hall towards Buffy’s room. They had bypassed the nurse’s station by coming up the back stairs from the parking garage. Dawn would’ve preferred to rescue her sister by herself, but she didn’t think she’d be able to get Buffy out alone, so she’d recruited Andrew to help her. She was beginning to regret that decision.

Dawn grabbed a wheelchair out of the hallway and the pair slipped unseen by the staff into Buffy’s room and closed the door.

“Are you sure about this?” Andrew asked, looking at Buffy.  Her skin was clammy and pale … she looked like she might be a vampire, herself.

“Completely,” Dawn assured him. “We have to get her out, get her awake – it’s for the greater good.”

“I don’t know…” Andrew balked.

“Andrew! I swear to God, if you don’t help me I’ll tell all the other Watchers that you have a poster of Billy Idol in the back of your closet!” Dawn threatened, keeping her voice low.

Andrew huffed, crossing his arms and raising his chin indignantly. “So? That’s not against the law! I like his music! I’m a total head-banging, punk rocker … uhh … dude!”

Dawn rolled her eyes and stomped her foot in frustration. “You’re a punk alright…” she muttered under her breath before taking a new tack. “You can’t back out now. You owe me! How many times did I keep Buffy from shackling you down in the basement of the apartment building when you were our ‘guestage’?  You wouldn’t have liked it down there – lots of mice scurrying around dropping raisins with their plague-y germs!”

“Oh, all right…” he finally groaned out, rolling his eyes.

“Tell them it wasn’t you!” Buffy suddenly exclaimed from her sleep and Dawn and Andrew both nearly jumped out of their skins.

“You didn’t tell me she talked!” Andrew accused after he got his heart out of his throat.

“She talks … she sings, she hums, she cries – she’s Buffy! Appearing nightly in a deathbed near you!” Dawn announced like a sideshow hawker, before rolling her eyes and sighing heavily.

“C’mon, we have to work fast, when those monitors start going off, we’re gonna have company,” Dawn instructed Andrew in a serious tone.

Dawn pulled the IV needle out of Buffy’s hand and took the oxygen line off. When she pulled back the covers and lifted the thin gown to remove the catheter and monitor leads, Andrew turned his back.

“Andrew! This is no time to be shy! Help me!” Dawn demanded in a low voice. When Andrew shook his head adamantly, keeping his back to them, Dawn said, “I hope you never meet a naked vampire …”

When Dawn pulled off the monitor leads, the machines by Buffy’s bed started beeping loudly. “HELP ME!” Dawn demanded of Andrew, punching him in the back.

“OWW!” he cried, trying to rub the spot in the middle of his back where she’d hit him. “No hitting!  You know I bruise like a peach!”

 Andrew turned around to see Dawn trying to get Buffy to a sitting position on the bed, Buffy’s gown was mostly back down over her front, anyway and Andrew came over to the other side of Buffy to help Dawn.

Dawn draped Buffy’s good arm over her shoulders and lifted Buffy up to her feet while Andrew helped steady her and pulled the wheelchair over behind Buffy.  Buffy moaned in pain when Dawn stood her up, even more greenish-yellow pus oozed from her wound and Andrew gagged at the sight and smell of it.

“Oh, some vampyre’s nightmare you’re gonna be…” Dawn mocked. “More like a nummy treat…”

Andrew huffed and held his breath as he helped Dawn get Buffy into the wheelchair. About that time, a nurse opened the door and started into the room. “Hey!” she yelled when she saw the intruders. Dawn launched herself at the nurse and knocked her against the wall. “GO!” she yelled at Andrew as she held the stunned nurse out of the way.

Andrew pushed hard on the wheelchair, rolled Buffy out of the room and started down the hall towards the elevators. When he saw more nurses coming, he did an about-face and went down a side hallway as fast as he could, away from them. He slid around corners and down the waxed hallways of the hospital with Buffy slumped in the wheelchair as the nurses yelled and ran after him until Andrew was totally lost; every hallway looked pretty much the same. When he came to a sudden stop to try and get his bearings, Buffy tumbled out of the wheelchair and onto the floor.

“Oh God!” Andrew exclaimed, running around to where Buffy lay sprawled on the floor. “Oh God…oh God…” he repeated as he tried in vain to pick her up without touching anything that was oozing or her bare skin.

“Oh, Buffy – I know you said to never touch you … that you’d rip my arm off and beat me to death with it. Oh, God!” Andrew babbled as he tried to pick her up and get her back into the wheelchair. “I’m not really a vampire, you know … Oh, God, sorry! Sorry!” he exclaimed, yanking his hand away when it slipped and traveled under the flimsy hospital gown and touched her thigh.

Andrew heard footsteps coming down the hallway – they’d find them soon.  With one final fear and adrenaline powered lift, Andrew got Buffy back into the wheelchair and began running with her again.  As he passed a wide hallway, he heard Dawn yelling his name. He turned the chair around on a dime, being careful to tip it back so Buffy wouldn’t be slung out again, and went back. Dawn was holding the freight elevator door open.

“C’mon! Where have you been? Giving her the dime tour!?” she asked sarcastically as Andrew wheeled Buffy into the elevator and Dawn stepped in after them, letting the door close behind them.

“We’re even after this!” Andrew insisted. “No more – this is it! Do you comprende? Nada mas!”

Dawn sighed. “Yes, fine – even.”

“And no telling about my taste in music …”

Dawn rolled her eyes. “Fine … I won’t tell anyone you’re a closet punk … rocker.”

When they reached the parking garage, Dawn stepped out and looked around – there was no one there and very few cars at this late hour. She motioned for Andrew to follow her with Buffy and they wheeled her to the car Dawn had rented.  After some effort, they finally had Buffy in the front seat and got the seatbelt fastened across her body. Andrew started to get into the back and Dawn stopped him.

“I’ve got it from here,” she told him.

“What? Why?” Andrew whined in confusion.

“Because you have a big mouth. If you know where we are, then you’ll tell Riley and Giles and this will all be for nothing.”

“That’s not true! I can keep secrets! I’m very good at keeping secrets!” Andrew defended.

“Oh right!” Dawn snorted. “Andrew, you'll fold faster than Superman on laundry day if either of them just looks at you sideways!”

Andrew clicked his tongue and folded his arms across his chest. “I’m deeply offended. Test number one in the Watchers’ curriculum is keeping secrets – I passed with flying colors!” he informed her, lifting his chin in the air. “I’m 89% better at keeping secrets now than I was back in Sunnydale.”

“Yeah, well, it’s the other 11% that worries me,” Dawn informed him, as she got into the driver’s side of the car and started the engine.

“Awww … c’mon, Dawnie. How am I supposed to get home?” Andrew whined, dropping his hands to his sides and pouting.

“Try the underground – or the bus, or walk,” Dawn suggested.

“It’s after midnight in downtown London! I could meet some unsavory characters!”

“Well, just use those mad-Watcher skills and you’ll be fine, Andrew. I have to go!” Dawn informed him, putting the car in gear and pulling away.

“Don’t forget to drive on the left! And look right first!” he called after her. “They didn’t teach that the Academy…and I kinda wish they would’ve ... it's sort of important,” he muttered as she drove away.

**~**

Buffy woke up to find Spike had been watching her as she slept. She reached her good hand out and touched his face softly and Spike closed his eyes, taking comfort in her touch. She never knew how long it would take for him to come back to himself after he returned from the trials. Buffy was afraid that one day he wouldn’t be able to push the insanity aside. Her heart bled for him, knowing what they were putting him through; every time he came back worse than the time before, but at least he had always come back … so far.

“I’m sorry, Buffy…” Spike whispered as tears leaked out from behind his lids.

“You have nothing to be sorry for…”

“I do,” he insisted, opening his eyes and looking into hers. “I got you into this – if not for me, you wouldn’t be in this … this hell.”

Buffy shook her head slowly. “Spike, if not for you I would never have known what love is; I would’ve never felt a life growing inside me; I would’ve never held our children in my arms and felt the joy of them; I would’ve never fully lived if not for you.”

Spike closed his eyes again and rolled over onto his back, covering his face with his hands as sobs wracked his body. Buffy sat up and moved over to him. She could feel the crust that had formed over her wound break open and the infection ridden liquid ooze down her back when she sat up.

Spike could smell it and he sat up and moved behind her to look at it. “It’s getting worse…” he informed her sadly. 

“I know…” she admitted, turning around and facing him.

“Spike, I want you to remember one thing – you have to promise me that you’ll believe what I say and never forget this,” Buffy said solemnly as she looked into his blue eyes. Those eyes that were so expressive now held fear and guilt and sadness; she longed to see the joy in them again … the love and the passion that she knew he possessed, but was now hidden, buried deep within his heart.

“Promise me that you’ll remember that you’re a good man. What you’ve done for me, for our friends, and for the world more than makes up for any bad that the demon did. I love you with my entire heart and soul. I will fix this, Spike – promise me that you won’t give up because I will fix it.”

Spike shook his head slowly from side to side. “I reckon there are more than a few people who would disagree … people I’ve killed, girls I’ve…” Spike broke down and covered his face with his hands. “I’m sorry, Buffy … I wanted to be the man you deserved… All I ever wanted was to be your hero.”

Buffy pulled Spike against her with her good arm. “You are my hero, now let me be yours. I promise, I ‘Spike promise’, that I will fix this, but you have to believe. Spike, you have to believe that you’re a good man – that you’re my good man and that I love you. Do you believe that?”

When Spike didn’t answer, Buffy pulled back and looked into his glistening eyes. “Tell me you believe,” she whispered to him.

Spike looked into her emerald green eyes and he saw her belief and love – belief in him, love for him, reflected in their depths.  Spike nodded slowly as he gently wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, careful to not hurt her shoulder. “I believe…” he whispered against her skin. “I believe in you.”

**~**

Dawn pulled the car into the garage under the flat that belonged to a friend from university who had gone on a three week ‘cultural exchange’ trip to China.  She’d asked Dawn to water her plants once a week while she was away, so Dawn had the key. It would be the perfect hiding place – neither Riley nor Giles knew about it.

Dawn left Buffy in the car as she went up the stairs and unlocked and opened the door before coming back down for her sister. Dawn struggled to get Buffy’s still unconscious body out of the car – she couldn’t lift her, so Dawn finally decided the only way to get her upstairs was by dragging her. “I’m sorry, Buffy …” Dawn murmured as she sat Buffy on the floor and grabbed her from behind under the armpits and dragged her to the stairs and then up them one at a time.

Dawn could feel bones moving under her hand and Buffy’s wound oozed pus and blood as she pulled her sister up the stairs. “God…I’m sorry, I’m sorry…” she kept repeating as Buffy moaned in pain but never fully woke up; the drugs she’d been given in the hospital still keeping her mostly sedated.

The stairs opened into the kitchen of the small flat and Dawn laid Buffy down on her stomach on the floor near the sink. Dawn had already stocked the flat with every kind of antibiotic ointment she could buy, as well as antiseptics, gauze, bandages, a couple of slings, anti-inflammatory drugs, and a few old partially empty bottles of antibiotics that she’d found in the medicine cabinet at home and at Giles’.  She set to work on Buffy’s shoulder, holding her breath against the stench, as she cleaned the wound with peroxide and Betadine then covered it with a thick coat of antibiotic ointment and gauze.  It was nothing they hadn’t done at the hospital, and Dawn knew that it would do no good unless Buffy woke up.

Dawn got a couple of blankets and pillows and laid one of the blankets on the floor, turning Buffy onto her good side on top of the blanket and putting one of the pillows under her head, then covering her with the other blanket and propping the other pillow against her back to keep her from turning over and hurting herself.  She knew that she’d have to clean the wound again many times and she didn’t think her friend would appreciate gross, smelly stains on their bed when she got back, so the floor in the kitchen would be the best place for Buffy for now.

Dawn sat down tiredly on the floor next to Buffy and stroked her sister’s hair back away from her face. Dawn sent a silent prayer to the Powers That Be … please let this work. She knew if she was wrong, if this didn’t work, then she would be the one responsible for killing her sister…again.

“I’m sorry, Buffy…” Dawn whispered to her as the guilt of Buffy’s sacrifice on the tower surfaced in Dawn’s mind.

“You have nothing to be sorry for…” Buffy murmured and Dawn looked at her, thinking that she’d awoken, but Buffy’s eyes were closed, she was still unconscious.

“You were always the strong one – always the one to protect me and Mom and all our friends the best you could …” Dawn talked as she continued to stroke Buffy’s hair.  “I always wished I could be like you … be a hero, I just never could find it within myself…” Dawn said sadly, her voice full of regret.

“You are my hero,” Buffy whispered in her sleep and Dawn looked at her again with a furrowed brow. Can she hear me?

“Do you believe that?” Buffy asked quietly as she shifted positions slightly on the floor to get more comfortable.

Dawn took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I don’t know…” she answered Buffy’s question. “I just believe in you …”

**~**