Phantom Pains
Author: JimboS
E-mail: RaistlinM1@aol.com
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters used in this story only the plot is mine, and even that is pretty basic.
Author's note: I hope you enjoy the story. It has been brewing in my head for a while now and after the last episode the plot finally came together for me. So here it is. Enjoy and since this is my first try at true angst let me know what you think of it.
Dedication: MJ, I appreciate you to no end. I thank you so much for taking time out to look over this for me.
* * *
Chapter 2
Buffy sat in a formed plastic chair with steel legs and armrests inside the open waiting area of the Sunnydale hospital. The entire area was cold and sterile as if the hospital itself was loath to declare itself a place of life or death preferring to remain neutral, clean, and dull. The hospital waiting area was filled with the sounds of lives begun, lives saved, and lives lost threaded together to create a complex tapestry depicting the mystery of life.
Buffy had called home, hoping that Dawn was there to pick up, upon her arrival after being stopped at the door to the emergency room and ushered to the waiting room. Dawn picked up the phone before the first ring could finish much to Buffy's relief. The last thing she needed was to worry about Dawn being attacked on her way home. It took close to ten minutes to convince Dawn not to take the car and drive down to the hospital herself and wait for Willow to get home although Buffy did not envy that job.
After getting off the phone Buffy sat down in the waiting room emotionally and now mentally exhausted. Buffy fell with in herself too tired to notice the outside world or bring herself to care about it. Doctors and nurses moved in front of the waiting area on their way parts unknown while a slow trickle of emergency cases were rushed through the large sliding glass doors leading outside, but Buffy was too preoccupied to notice. The people were only ghostly apparitions sliding in and out of her vision incorporeal and intangible. All that was real, all that she cared about at the moment was a man a hundred feet away being worked on furiously by doctors and nurses trying to save his life and coincidentally Buffy's soul.
Buffy tried to stop herself, but her thought continually returned to her life with Xander and how empty that life would be without him. The thought of never seeing his smile again, never hearing on of his random thoughts again, and never having around to talk to again sent a chill through her body that started in her spine and ended in her heart. After being numb for so long the fact that she when she finally felt something it turned out to be so chilling and yet painful real was bitter sweet.
Small tears pooled in her eyes reflecting and distorting their blue-green hue giving them the look of a sparkling sea, and although she willed the tears to remain where they were she could not stop them from spilling over tracing thin lines down her face. Buffy felt the twin tears roll down her face leaving behind a trail wetness on her cheeks but made no move to wipe them away; instead she just watched the drops of salt-water fall from her chin to land on her pants to be soaked up by the awaiting cloth.
When it rains it pours and teardrops never travel alone. That was what Buffy learned as she felt more tears rolled down her face traveling on the trail blazed before them only to meet the same fate as their absorbed brethren. "This can't be happening. Please just let him be okay," she whispered through her falling tears unwilling and unable to stop the flow of her personified fear and sorrow that continued to spill from her eyes. Gradually the flow of tears began to slow until it had stopped entirely leaving thin red lines in its wake.
Buffy looked up at the sound of the glass doors sliding open to find Willow and Dawn approaching quickly their faces a mix of hope a dread. "Is there any news," Willow asked hopefully.
"No," Buffy answered shaking her head, "I don't know how long I've been sitting here, but they haven't come out yet."
Willow and Dawns face fell both unsure what was worse, bad news or no news. Willow and Dawn took their places on either side of Buffy; they wrapped their arms around each other sharing their strength through the physical contact.
"He'll be alright," Dawn said hopefully. She was not sure exactly whom she was trying to convince with her prediction of the future.
"Of course he will," said Willow taking up the torch of hope trying fervently from letting it be smothered by the oppressive darkness of despair. "I bet he'll be back to normal in no time at all. I mean after all this time on the Hellmouth it just wouldn't be right for a demon to get him."
Willow's lips began to quiver as she spoke the last few words while tears began to gather in her eyes. Dawn watched Willow slowly lose the battle with her seditious eyes and discerned the faint lines on her sister's face left from her weeping. The situation was too much for the vulnerable teen, and she to began to cry. Buffy only answered by pulling her friend and sister closer to her allowing them to cry on her shoulder while being thankful that she had cried before and was able to offer her friends the strength they craved.
The three remained fixed in the uncomfortable hospital chairs except for the quiet sobs shaking their slight form unwilling to break the embrace and the comfort it offered. Inside the embrace there was no individual and therefore there was no weakness or pain to be owned only shared and diluted among the other participants they stayed together like a sculpture depicting the blending of pain and comfort and as a monument to their fallen friend.
This was how the doctor found them still wrapped together the tears had long since ceased to flow yet they remained. The doctor cleared his throat softly loathed to violate the obviously private moment yet it was part of his job, but the doctor received no response his quiet intrusion.
"Um excuse me," said the doctor in a practiced fatherly tone consciously keeping his voice smooth and calm, "are you here with Alexander Harris?" The question's effect was immediate causing Willow and Dawn to pull away from Buffy almost simultaneously allowing themselves to see the owner of the voice that offered them soul cleansing relief and heart breaking sorrow in the same breath.
"Yes we are, is he okay," asked Buffy, her voice wavering. Buffy almost wished she had not asked the question; she was afraid of hearing the doctor voice the reality that had been plaguing her heart and mind ever since she stepped into the ambulance. She contemplated running and preserving the small shred of hope that she held in her heart, but she also knew that not knowing would torture her for an eternity never allowing her to accept always forcing itself into her thoughts. So Buffy sat in front of the doctor solemn and determined mentally preparing herself for the worse.
"Mr. Harris was taken up to surgery to try and stabilize his condition," said the doctor, "He lost quite a bit of blood, but we were able to stabilize him and he is alive and in intensive care." The doctor smiled warmly at the three matching sighs of relief matched by the sudden smiles that splayed across their faces along with the sudden change in posture as the girls sat up straighter like a tremendous weight had been lifted from their shoulders.
The smile vanished as quickly as it appeared to be replaced by the solemn line that was carefully conceived to be neither a smile nor a frown. "Alexander appears to have been attacked by a large wild dog that caused many laceration on his torso and did extensive damage to his right arm. Alexander's Humorous was shattered into at least ten pieces as near as we could tell and the damage to the nerves and tissue in his biceps and triceps was not repairable."
"What are you telling us doctor," asked Willow while grasping Buffy's hand for support, both taking and giving trying to be strong while feeling weak.
"I'm saying that Mr. Harris' arm was beyond repair and was threatening to bleed him dry, so we were forced to amputate at the shoulder," answered the doctor in grave voice that showed no signs of his previous practiced warmth.
"No," whispered Buffy to herself not sure what exactly she was refuting with the simple word whether it was the knowledge that her friend had lost his entire livelihood or the voice inside herself that asked which was worse losing a life or a reason to live. Buffy mechanically wrapped her arm around Dawn, who once was burrowing into her sister's side once again hoping to find the protection and comfort that she could not find in the white sterile halls of the hospital.
"No," Buffy whispered again trying to stop her thoughts from carrying her away in a flood of guilt and self-doubt. She stopped herself from wondering if Xander would still have an arm if she had been a few minutes faster, if she had not stopped for Dawn, or if she had just not gone out at all.
"Can we see him," asked Willow while holding Buffy's hand like a vice. As much as Willow wanted to stand up straight and tall in the face of the emotional storm that buffeted her psyche from all sides she could not sustain her strength against the tide of sorrow that washed away her resolve.
"I would have to say that Xander needs his rest," said the doctor, who watched the three girls' faces harden with newfound resolve against the perceived obstacle to seeing their friend. "But after seeing the looks on your faces I would say that you don't look like the 'go home, get some sleep, and come back in the morning' kind of women," he finished with a laugh.
* * *
The small hospital room was dimly lit with only a few fluorescent lights illuminating the room while filling it with a constant dull hum. A thin rectangle of white light spilled onto the white tile floor from the small window in the door. A small bed with a steel frame stands with its head against the wall with a cushioned chair on one side and a plethora of expensive and complex machines that add to the background noise provided by the lights with a myriad of beeps and hums.
Clean white cotton sheets enshrouded the form of a man unconscious in the uncomfortable cot. A soft emerald glow emanated from the monitors keeping watch over the young man tainting the sterile white of the room with an unnatural green. The subtle green splashed across the resting man's ashen face causing dark shadows to form around his eyes while discoloring the bruises and scrapes that were strewn across his face giving the already weak man a diseased and sallow complexion.
The room's door swung open silently allowing the white light from the hall to pour into the room and blaze a trail across the tile floor to land on the form of the sleeping man filling in the shadows across his face and dispelling the ghastly glow. The man's eyes shifted and blinked under their heavy lids trying to adjust to the sudden change.
The shadow of the doctor blocked the light coming in from the doorway giving the sleeping man a brief respite but allowed the doctor to witness the ailing look of the man caused by the monitors. The doctor flicked the light switch on the wall beside him not wanting the three girls behind him to see the haunting sight causing the man to shift slightly away from the new light.
The doctor stepped to the side allowing entrance for the trailing girls. The three tread carefully into the room like deer entering a clearing keeping close together with their heads tilted upward and their bodies tensed in anticipation. Collectively they kept their eyes moving across the room searching for something to look at beside the bed and its occupant not wanting to be the first to witness their friend in his current state, but they could find nothing on the plain white walls to hold their gaze.
"Oh God, Xander," whispered Dawn when her eyes finally fell to the bed and the man wrapped within. Xander's sheet had slipped down when he moved to reveal his right shoulder was wrapped in several layers of gauze and bandages that ended too abruptly for the young girl to handle.
Dawn turned away from the sight and into the chest of the closest person available, who happened to be Willow who wrapped the teenager in a tight embrace while all the while staring at the body of her life long friend.
Buffy walked stiffly toward the bed watching the face of her friend not wanting to see the missing limb not wanting to comprehend what the bandages meant, and not wanting to think of what would have happened if she had been five minutes faster or worse five minutes later.
Instead she just stared at Xander's face searching for something to prove that the man lying before her was not her Xander that it was all a mistake. She desperately wanted to find out that the real Xander was lying in another room somewhere perfectly fine and waiting to see his friends, but she knew it was him she had seen that familiar face too often to not be sure.
Buffy was sure that it was Xander's body but she needed more. She needed to know that when he finally woke up he would be the same Xander she had always known, but the longer she looks the less of her Xander she finds. All she could see was an incomplete facsimile of her friend because while his features were the same they seemed foreign and strange in their static state.
Buffy leaned in close and ran her fingers across Xander's forehead pushing his dark bangs away from his face allowing her to search closer, but everywhere she looked something was wrong. His mouth was drawn into a long thin line instead of its customary curve and crooked grin, his eyes were veiled by heavy lids covering his warm chocolate orbs that always seemed to smile all on their own, and most important his left arm rested against his side looking bizarre and alone without its companion. Its companion that was Xander's entire life was gone, and she had no idea how to make it better.
Buffy entwined her fingers with his holding it against her cheek trying to find comfort in the touch. When she pulled it away she was surprised to find it wet with tears she did not know she had started to shed that was when she felt a hand on her shoulder.
Buffy looked up to find Willow standing over her crying with Dawn clutching her like a drowning victim drawing strength from Willow to be able to look at Xander without losing her nerve. Buffy touched Willow's hand and looked into her friend's eyes. Buffy saw her fears reflected back at her, but she could also see that Willow was on the brink of losing her carefully crafted composure.
"Willow," Buffy said softly, can you take Dawn home for me? I don't think that this is the best place for her right now."
Willow and Dawn both made moves to try and argue but their eyes once again fell to the missing limb and their objections died in their throats. Willow just nodded and squeezed Buffy's shoulder while Dawn just nodded and turned away her gaze unfocused as she tried to comprehend Xander's situation but coming up short.
Buffy watched them leave and hoped that they would be able to find rest but knowing that they would not. Buffy then noticed the doctor standing at the door, and their eyes locked; Buffy's gaze told him that visiting hours would not apply. He slowly nodded and left closing the door on his way out.
Buffy kept her fingers entwined with Xander's and slowly brought her head to rest against his chest listening to the beating of his heart finding more comfort in that than the synthetic beeps coming from the machine across from her. The beats soothed her more than any lullaby could have and sleep slowly claimed her gently pulling her away from her pain and into a world where all could be right and good at least until the morning came.
End of Chapter 2
* * *
Author: JimboS
E-mail: RaistlinM1@aol.com
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters used in this story only the plot is mine, and even that is pretty basic.
Author's note: I hope you enjoy the story. It has been brewing in my head for a while now and after the last episode the plot finally came together for me. So here it is. Enjoy and since this is my first try at true angst let me know what you think of it.
Dedication: MJ, I appreciate you to no end. I thank you so much for taking time out to look over this for me.
* * *
Chapter 2
Buffy sat in a formed plastic chair with steel legs and armrests inside the open waiting area of the Sunnydale hospital. The entire area was cold and sterile as if the hospital itself was loath to declare itself a place of life or death preferring to remain neutral, clean, and dull. The hospital waiting area was filled with the sounds of lives begun, lives saved, and lives lost threaded together to create a complex tapestry depicting the mystery of life.
Buffy had called home, hoping that Dawn was there to pick up, upon her arrival after being stopped at the door to the emergency room and ushered to the waiting room. Dawn picked up the phone before the first ring could finish much to Buffy's relief. The last thing she needed was to worry about Dawn being attacked on her way home. It took close to ten minutes to convince Dawn not to take the car and drive down to the hospital herself and wait for Willow to get home although Buffy did not envy that job.
After getting off the phone Buffy sat down in the waiting room emotionally and now mentally exhausted. Buffy fell with in herself too tired to notice the outside world or bring herself to care about it. Doctors and nurses moved in front of the waiting area on their way parts unknown while a slow trickle of emergency cases were rushed through the large sliding glass doors leading outside, but Buffy was too preoccupied to notice. The people were only ghostly apparitions sliding in and out of her vision incorporeal and intangible. All that was real, all that she cared about at the moment was a man a hundred feet away being worked on furiously by doctors and nurses trying to save his life and coincidentally Buffy's soul.
Buffy tried to stop herself, but her thought continually returned to her life with Xander and how empty that life would be without him. The thought of never seeing his smile again, never hearing on of his random thoughts again, and never having around to talk to again sent a chill through her body that started in her spine and ended in her heart. After being numb for so long the fact that she when she finally felt something it turned out to be so chilling and yet painful real was bitter sweet.
Small tears pooled in her eyes reflecting and distorting their blue-green hue giving them the look of a sparkling sea, and although she willed the tears to remain where they were she could not stop them from spilling over tracing thin lines down her face. Buffy felt the twin tears roll down her face leaving behind a trail wetness on her cheeks but made no move to wipe them away; instead she just watched the drops of salt-water fall from her chin to land on her pants to be soaked up by the awaiting cloth.
When it rains it pours and teardrops never travel alone. That was what Buffy learned as she felt more tears rolled down her face traveling on the trail blazed before them only to meet the same fate as their absorbed brethren. "This can't be happening. Please just let him be okay," she whispered through her falling tears unwilling and unable to stop the flow of her personified fear and sorrow that continued to spill from her eyes. Gradually the flow of tears began to slow until it had stopped entirely leaving thin red lines in its wake.
Buffy looked up at the sound of the glass doors sliding open to find Willow and Dawn approaching quickly their faces a mix of hope a dread. "Is there any news," Willow asked hopefully.
"No," Buffy answered shaking her head, "I don't know how long I've been sitting here, but they haven't come out yet."
Willow and Dawns face fell both unsure what was worse, bad news or no news. Willow and Dawn took their places on either side of Buffy; they wrapped their arms around each other sharing their strength through the physical contact.
"He'll be alright," Dawn said hopefully. She was not sure exactly whom she was trying to convince with her prediction of the future.
"Of course he will," said Willow taking up the torch of hope trying fervently from letting it be smothered by the oppressive darkness of despair. "I bet he'll be back to normal in no time at all. I mean after all this time on the Hellmouth it just wouldn't be right for a demon to get him."
Willow's lips began to quiver as she spoke the last few words while tears began to gather in her eyes. Dawn watched Willow slowly lose the battle with her seditious eyes and discerned the faint lines on her sister's face left from her weeping. The situation was too much for the vulnerable teen, and she to began to cry. Buffy only answered by pulling her friend and sister closer to her allowing them to cry on her shoulder while being thankful that she had cried before and was able to offer her friends the strength they craved.
The three remained fixed in the uncomfortable hospital chairs except for the quiet sobs shaking their slight form unwilling to break the embrace and the comfort it offered. Inside the embrace there was no individual and therefore there was no weakness or pain to be owned only shared and diluted among the other participants they stayed together like a sculpture depicting the blending of pain and comfort and as a monument to their fallen friend.
This was how the doctor found them still wrapped together the tears had long since ceased to flow yet they remained. The doctor cleared his throat softly loathed to violate the obviously private moment yet it was part of his job, but the doctor received no response his quiet intrusion.
"Um excuse me," said the doctor in a practiced fatherly tone consciously keeping his voice smooth and calm, "are you here with Alexander Harris?" The question's effect was immediate causing Willow and Dawn to pull away from Buffy almost simultaneously allowing themselves to see the owner of the voice that offered them soul cleansing relief and heart breaking sorrow in the same breath.
"Yes we are, is he okay," asked Buffy, her voice wavering. Buffy almost wished she had not asked the question; she was afraid of hearing the doctor voice the reality that had been plaguing her heart and mind ever since she stepped into the ambulance. She contemplated running and preserving the small shred of hope that she held in her heart, but she also knew that not knowing would torture her for an eternity never allowing her to accept always forcing itself into her thoughts. So Buffy sat in front of the doctor solemn and determined mentally preparing herself for the worse.
"Mr. Harris was taken up to surgery to try and stabilize his condition," said the doctor, "He lost quite a bit of blood, but we were able to stabilize him and he is alive and in intensive care." The doctor smiled warmly at the three matching sighs of relief matched by the sudden smiles that splayed across their faces along with the sudden change in posture as the girls sat up straighter like a tremendous weight had been lifted from their shoulders.
The smile vanished as quickly as it appeared to be replaced by the solemn line that was carefully conceived to be neither a smile nor a frown. "Alexander appears to have been attacked by a large wild dog that caused many laceration on his torso and did extensive damage to his right arm. Alexander's Humorous was shattered into at least ten pieces as near as we could tell and the damage to the nerves and tissue in his biceps and triceps was not repairable."
"What are you telling us doctor," asked Willow while grasping Buffy's hand for support, both taking and giving trying to be strong while feeling weak.
"I'm saying that Mr. Harris' arm was beyond repair and was threatening to bleed him dry, so we were forced to amputate at the shoulder," answered the doctor in grave voice that showed no signs of his previous practiced warmth.
"No," whispered Buffy to herself not sure what exactly she was refuting with the simple word whether it was the knowledge that her friend had lost his entire livelihood or the voice inside herself that asked which was worse losing a life or a reason to live. Buffy mechanically wrapped her arm around Dawn, who once was burrowing into her sister's side once again hoping to find the protection and comfort that she could not find in the white sterile halls of the hospital.
"No," Buffy whispered again trying to stop her thoughts from carrying her away in a flood of guilt and self-doubt. She stopped herself from wondering if Xander would still have an arm if she had been a few minutes faster, if she had not stopped for Dawn, or if she had just not gone out at all.
"Can we see him," asked Willow while holding Buffy's hand like a vice. As much as Willow wanted to stand up straight and tall in the face of the emotional storm that buffeted her psyche from all sides she could not sustain her strength against the tide of sorrow that washed away her resolve.
"I would have to say that Xander needs his rest," said the doctor, who watched the three girls' faces harden with newfound resolve against the perceived obstacle to seeing their friend. "But after seeing the looks on your faces I would say that you don't look like the 'go home, get some sleep, and come back in the morning' kind of women," he finished with a laugh.
* * *
The small hospital room was dimly lit with only a few fluorescent lights illuminating the room while filling it with a constant dull hum. A thin rectangle of white light spilled onto the white tile floor from the small window in the door. A small bed with a steel frame stands with its head against the wall with a cushioned chair on one side and a plethora of expensive and complex machines that add to the background noise provided by the lights with a myriad of beeps and hums.
Clean white cotton sheets enshrouded the form of a man unconscious in the uncomfortable cot. A soft emerald glow emanated from the monitors keeping watch over the young man tainting the sterile white of the room with an unnatural green. The subtle green splashed across the resting man's ashen face causing dark shadows to form around his eyes while discoloring the bruises and scrapes that were strewn across his face giving the already weak man a diseased and sallow complexion.
The room's door swung open silently allowing the white light from the hall to pour into the room and blaze a trail across the tile floor to land on the form of the sleeping man filling in the shadows across his face and dispelling the ghastly glow. The man's eyes shifted and blinked under their heavy lids trying to adjust to the sudden change.
The shadow of the doctor blocked the light coming in from the doorway giving the sleeping man a brief respite but allowed the doctor to witness the ailing look of the man caused by the monitors. The doctor flicked the light switch on the wall beside him not wanting the three girls behind him to see the haunting sight causing the man to shift slightly away from the new light.
The doctor stepped to the side allowing entrance for the trailing girls. The three tread carefully into the room like deer entering a clearing keeping close together with their heads tilted upward and their bodies tensed in anticipation. Collectively they kept their eyes moving across the room searching for something to look at beside the bed and its occupant not wanting to be the first to witness their friend in his current state, but they could find nothing on the plain white walls to hold their gaze.
"Oh God, Xander," whispered Dawn when her eyes finally fell to the bed and the man wrapped within. Xander's sheet had slipped down when he moved to reveal his right shoulder was wrapped in several layers of gauze and bandages that ended too abruptly for the young girl to handle.
Dawn turned away from the sight and into the chest of the closest person available, who happened to be Willow who wrapped the teenager in a tight embrace while all the while staring at the body of her life long friend.
Buffy walked stiffly toward the bed watching the face of her friend not wanting to see the missing limb not wanting to comprehend what the bandages meant, and not wanting to think of what would have happened if she had been five minutes faster or worse five minutes later.
Instead she just stared at Xander's face searching for something to prove that the man lying before her was not her Xander that it was all a mistake. She desperately wanted to find out that the real Xander was lying in another room somewhere perfectly fine and waiting to see his friends, but she knew it was him she had seen that familiar face too often to not be sure.
Buffy was sure that it was Xander's body but she needed more. She needed to know that when he finally woke up he would be the same Xander she had always known, but the longer she looks the less of her Xander she finds. All she could see was an incomplete facsimile of her friend because while his features were the same they seemed foreign and strange in their static state.
Buffy leaned in close and ran her fingers across Xander's forehead pushing his dark bangs away from his face allowing her to search closer, but everywhere she looked something was wrong. His mouth was drawn into a long thin line instead of its customary curve and crooked grin, his eyes were veiled by heavy lids covering his warm chocolate orbs that always seemed to smile all on their own, and most important his left arm rested against his side looking bizarre and alone without its companion. Its companion that was Xander's entire life was gone, and she had no idea how to make it better.
Buffy entwined her fingers with his holding it against her cheek trying to find comfort in the touch. When she pulled it away she was surprised to find it wet with tears she did not know she had started to shed that was when she felt a hand on her shoulder.
Buffy looked up to find Willow standing over her crying with Dawn clutching her like a drowning victim drawing strength from Willow to be able to look at Xander without losing her nerve. Buffy touched Willow's hand and looked into her friend's eyes. Buffy saw her fears reflected back at her, but she could also see that Willow was on the brink of losing her carefully crafted composure.
"Willow," Buffy said softly, can you take Dawn home for me? I don't think that this is the best place for her right now."
Willow and Dawn both made moves to try and argue but their eyes once again fell to the missing limb and their objections died in their throats. Willow just nodded and squeezed Buffy's shoulder while Dawn just nodded and turned away her gaze unfocused as she tried to comprehend Xander's situation but coming up short.
Buffy watched them leave and hoped that they would be able to find rest but knowing that they would not. Buffy then noticed the doctor standing at the door, and their eyes locked; Buffy's gaze told him that visiting hours would not apply. He slowly nodded and left closing the door on his way out.
Buffy kept her fingers entwined with Xander's and slowly brought her head to rest against his chest listening to the beating of his heart finding more comfort in that than the synthetic beeps coming from the machine across from her. The beats soothed her more than any lullaby could have and sleep slowly claimed her gently pulling her away from her pain and into a world where all could be right and good at least until the morning came.
End of Chapter 2
* * *