TITLE: "Normal again" (9/10) part III
AUTHOR: Richard Bachman
EMAIL: bachman_rchard@hotmail.com
SITE: nope
FEEDBACK: Give it to me luv, you know you want more of this.
DISTRIBUTION: Do whatever you like poodle. As long as Richard is mentioned I'm fine. SUMMARY: Based on the episode Normal Again. Instead of Buffy, Spike was poisoned by the demon and his consciousness was transported into an alternative reality where he found himself incarcerated in an asylum.
THANK YOU: For all of your patience, your support and your comments on the story.
WARNING: (Multiple) Character death.
Witness ACT 9; And so it ends (part III).
SCENE 8
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Like a false guard, false watch keeping
Still in strife, she whispered peace
She would sing while I was weeping
If I listened, she would cease.
False was she, and unrelenting
When my last joys strewed the ground
Even sorrow saw, repenting
Those sad relics scattered round.
Hope, whose whisper would have given
Balm to all my frenzied pain
Stretched her wings, and soared to heaven
Went, and never returned again.
Hope - Emily Brontë, 1846
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
He watched how the black metal disappeared inside Angelus' chest. Blood spurted outward in a little stream, and a red stain bloomed like a rose on his Sire's shirt. Angelus' eyes flicked down, his mouth drew open as if trying to scream, but the only sound that he was able to utter was a slow wet gurgling. His hand shook violently as he raised it, his movement sluggish, and touched where the iron railroad spike lay imbedded inside his flesh. He blinked as he lifted his hand and saw it tainted deep crimson. He looked as if he was surprised by this injury. Then blood gushed from his mouth, and he slumped, his entire weight crushing down on his Childe, who kept watching his Sire's demise with wide shocked eyes, his hands still resting on the slippery end of the metal.
It was only when Angelus' blood dripped from his lips into William's eyes that he was abruptly pulled out of his stun, and he pushed off the dying body in an almost terrified motion. He rolled away from underneath, barely able to muffle a cry as the taller man's legs sagged over his own injured limp. He crawled away from the motionless figure, bits of blood-tainted documents sticking on to his sweat and blood rusted clothes as he moved toward Buffy, who was now inching toward him despite of her restrains, her face awfully pale.
"Buffy" He whispered, and ran his hand through her hair that pasted down over her face in damp strings. "Buffy are you all right? Please tell he didn't hurt you, please tell me he didn't, please." He untied her hands and feet while he kept murmuring to her. When she didn't react, he gently caressed her face, wiping his blood over her flushed cheeks as he tried to stop her stream of tears. Buffy looked at him, her expression blank, but as she listened to his whispered words her resolve broke down and she slumped over to him, pressing herself against his shaking form and started sobbing.
"Don't cry." William begged, frightened by her tears. He was so confused. "Please don't cry. Don't. No need to. Not anymore."
He wrapped his hands around her, and held her as if she was a small child that needed comforting, just like she had held him so many times before, and slowly, gently, he started rocking her in his arms.
From over his shoulder, Buffy could see through the haze of her tears Angelus' still form, lying face down on a pile of cluttered documents. A dark stain appeared underneath him, spreading itself in a wide circle over the white sheets of paper.
"What have you done." She whispered, her voice almost impassive as if frozen.
He gave no answer and kept cradling her in his arms. She pushed herself away from his embrace and stared in his face. He looked at her, his eyes big and frightened. He seemed so small, almost like a child.
"Oh William, what have you done."
"I didn't -" He hesitated. He couldn't explain to her what he had done. He hardly understood it himself. He had killed. He had murdered the one man that had been a brother and a friend to him ever since he could remember his own existence. All these memories, of a shared childhood, of friendship, of being a family, seemed all that remained after the anger and fear for the monster had disappeared, after all the dark nightmare visions of the demon Angelus had died with one thrust through the heart. He couldn't make himself to turn around to look at the body. It was Liam's body now that lay there, becoming cold and rigid, as the life's spirit leaked away in flows of crimson. How could he explain it to her, how could he still tell her that he was a good man?
How could she ever be able love this monster?
"I didn't want to -" He finally whispered, his throat working. "Oh God, Buffy I didn't want to -" He broke down in tears, his by guilt tormented mind close to being ruined. "Don't tell me I'm a monster Buffy! Don't tell me I'm an evil soulless thing! I did this, I did this only so he wouldn't hurt you, I wanted to kill him and I was bad, Buffy. I was a bad man because I wanted revenge and I wanted to hate, I was so stupid, SO STUPID! To listen to those voices, listen to her, but I won't, not anymore, I will be good. Buffy I can be good, I promise. Please I beg you, don't leave me, don't, please, don't tell me I'm a monster, don't tell me I'm beneath you! See me, you have to See me, you're the only one who ever could. I'm not a bad man Buffy, I'm not a bad man.."
He kept his eyes to the ground, afraid to look into hers. His shoulders sagged and shook violently as he was struck by grief. "Liam." He muttered. "Poor Liam. Oh God!"
He covered his face with his blood-drenched hands, and sobbed silently. Dark thoughts clouded his mind that was now awfully still. No more chanting, no more whispers. Everything inside was silent and dead like a grave.
She placed her soft hands on his cheeks. It surprised him that she still wanted to touch him.
"Shshsh." She wrapped her arms him, and pressed her chin on his head. "It's all right. It's okay. I won't leave you."
She held his body closer to her now, caressing him quietly, calmly, easing away his anxiety. They sat there for a while, holding each other in the darkness of the room with only her gentle words breaking the silence.
"Shshshsh. Quiet now. There are no demons, no voices anymore. Everything is quiet."
His sobbing finally ceased. He tilted his chin and looked up at her.
"I won't leave you." She whispered. "I would never leave you."
Her eyes, beautiful and deep, they were still like before. They had not changed.
"I love you, William."
She still saw him.
In her eyes, he was still a good man.
A smile dawned on her lips. She was so lovely when she smiled. Her smile could brighten his darkest moods. She tilted her head to one side and her hand lifted to caress his cheek. Her movements were slow but elegant, like in a dream. To him, it was a dream. Everything besides her had ceased to exist. But then the broadening smile on her face suddenly froze. Her eyes grew wide. He didn't understand this. Hardly heard the roaring of the gunshot behind him. He stared at Buffy and didn't understand why she wasn't smiling at him anymore, but couldn't hear her shouting at him. Her mouth moved, but there was no sound. Everything was silent. She threw herself over his body, protecting him from the bullet that was meant to take his life, but instead hit her now in the back and pierced her spine.
Buffy slumped against his shoulders. Her hands slipped down, letting go of him, and sagged till they hung limply by her side. Then she fell. He watched how she fell and it seemed to take forever and ever. Her hand brushed over his arm as she fell, and when she was finally down on the floor, William saw how her eyes kept looking at him. Seeing him. And then they closed.
No, he thought, this can't be. Not possible. She said she would never leave. Never die. She died before. She can't come back. She can't die. She loved me. She loves me.
"WILLIAM!"
Angelus, swaying on his feet, his hand pressing onto his wound, blood escaping between his trembling fingers. He stumbled toward him with his gun raised and already thumbing back the hammer.
On the spot where he had fallen, there lay not the blackened piece of iron, the railroad spike William thought that he had used as a weapon to bring his Sire's demise, but a short red tainted glass shard. It had been discarded. It had only penetrated a few inches into Angelus' flesh and ruptured his lungs, but it had never been able to reach his heart.
"WILLIAM!!" He roared, and dark spittle flew from his lips as he spoke his name like a curse. "YOU TREACHEROUS RAT!!!"
William flashed his eyes up to the murderous vampire and saw him holding the gun.
He killed her.
His thoughts went wild, uncontrollable as they were mangled in this torturous pain and anger.
HE KILLED HER!!
His face abruptly changed from grief-struck into something terrible, and when Angelus was close enough and pulled the trigger he was suddenly hit by fear as he saw the look in his Childe's eyes.
There was madness and death in those cold piercing eyes.
This time, as the gun roared and the shot was fired, William was aware of his peril and dodged, flinging his body to the side. The bullet missed him completely and Angelus let out an enraged scream. With bloodshot eyes, he scanned the floor for William's movements, and once again he raised his weapon and aimed at his Childe's head.
Before he could pull the trigger for a second time, William launched himself at his legs, smashing his shoulders against the kneecaps. Angelus swayed, and fell down to the floor with the murder-weapon still clutched in his hand.
"NO!" He bellowed, a deranged anger burning inside. His eyes flashed gold in the shadow that swept over his face as William loomed over and to smash his temple. "YOU KILLED HER!" His maddened Childe shouted, and his hands flew around his neck. "SHE LOVED ME!!" William yelled, and tears started to fall. "SHE LOVED ME AND YOU KILLED HER!!" His grip was cold, his fingers were like knives, cutting through the weak tissue till they reached bone. Angelus struggled for breath, legs and arms moving, shuddering violently. Such impudence! He thought hatefully. Despite of the agony and fear, he was enraged. How dare he! How dare he to defy him!! Him! Angelus! Without him he would have been nothing! Nothing but a long since deceased Victorian ghost! The claws on his neck then started to crush his bones. Angelus clutched with one hand onto his Childe's face, and pushed his fingers into the eyes. NOTHING! YOU'RE NOTHING AND NEVER WILL YOU BECOME MORE THAN THAT!! And the words sounded like thunder in his head, but from his lips, they parted in a weak whisper as his already wounded lungs were in a desperate need for oxygen.
"MURDERER!!"
William struck him on his cheek. His head swayed to the side by the violent impact. Lines blurred for a moment. Then, as his vision steadied, he saw his arm stretched out in front, holding on to the gun. With an enraged roar he swung it toward William's head to smash it.
William was captured in a dream again. No, not a dream, a nightmare. But as he saw Angelus raise his arm that was holding the weapon, his hands slipped off his Sire's throat and seized it, capturing his wrist. Bones there were fragile. They broke so easily. He twisted Sire's hand and there was a most delicious sound, a crackling like burning timber on a warm fire. A cry then followed, but to William that cry had no meaning.
Angelus' grip over the weapon faltered, and suddenly, William found himself holding it. The smooth warm metal lay in his hand and waited, eager to be used. Like in a dream, he lowered it then, aiming it at the face of the monster, aiming it at his brother's face. Hazel eyes grew large. Harsh lines disappeared around the corners of the mouth, his brows, and with that, cruelty seeped away from his features. Gone was his destructive hate and rage. And suddenly, all there was left was this man, lying on his back in front of him, wounded and scared and bleeding, nursing the broken wrist with his good hand.
This man stared into the barrel of the gun he held, petrified, then he gazed up, wary and confused as if he had just awakened from a deep sleep, and a trace of relief flashed in his eyes as he recognized him.
"Will?" Liam's voice trembled, but there was no more fear, only confusion. "William? What happened? I can't remember."
William's dream was shattered. The man's words pierced through his dream like bullets ripped through flesh.
"No." William muttered, and shook his head, fervently. "No no no no no no. You can't. You can't do this."
He fired. The loud blast made him flinch and he squinted his eyes. Tiny specks of blood rained on his face like a fountain.
Then it was silent again.
He stood there for a while, not moving, hardly aware of the slow trickle of warm blood running down his ruined leg, not noticing that he was trembling and panting like wolf. He stood there and stared at nothing but darkness, listened to nothing but darkness. Somehow, he thought that he finally was at peace.
But then a sound came, a shift of flesh over fabric, hustling paper, followed by a soft sigh. He turned around, slowly. The gun was suddenly heavy, a weight too great to bear for his blood drenched hand. He dropped it.
A second sigh, followed by a weak pull of breath. William struggled toward the source of those tiny sounds, slightly limping. Behind the ruined desk, in front of the couch, Buffy was still lying on her side, the collar and the back of her shirt tainted dark, but her chest was rising and falling in a weak pace.
"Buffy!"
She didn't open her eyes and William dropped on his knees in front of her. Gently, he lifted her head and held her in his lap, caressing her damp hair and face to comfort her. Her lips were moving and she was whispering something. He brought his ear close to her lips and listened. Her breath was still warm, but however hard he tried, however quiet he forced himself to be, he couldn't hear what she was trying to tell him. Her voice had already grown too weak to be understood.
What he did understand was that she was dying.
She was dying in his arms and there was nothing, nothing he could do to save her.
He shut his eyes, tears burning behind them, and he saw, he remembered what he had witnessed once in that frightening dream, that nightmare vision. Buffy, floating on her back in a black silver sea. Her body motionless as she was dragged further and further away from him by the waves. And then a merciless sun, that rose above the water and burnt her, destroyed her, right before his eyes.
"Don't go." And his tears fell on her cheek, glided down her chin and ran down into her neck. "Don't leave me. You promised you wouldn't. Please. I can never be anyone without you." His fingers traced his tears along her skin, along the frail muscles of her neck. He remembered the scarf that she had worn that night, in his dream. That crimson scarf taken from one of their victims, slivering down her pale neck like flowing blood. His hand trembled as he found the pulse underneath her skin. It was so weak, so fragile. So close to death. "I won't let you leave me." He said, and he swallowed, tightening his jaws. "I won't let you die again."
He found the shard half buried underneath the tarnished documents. He brought it with him as he went back to her. Holding her gently, he loosened the first two buttons of her shirt, and tilted her head slightly to bare her throat. Buffy's eyelids fluttered as he did this, and a soft moan escaped her lips.
"Shshshsh." He comforted her. "Quiet luv. It's all right. Everything is going to be all right again."
He pressed a tender kiss on her forehead and said. "I won't let you die. I promise I'll take care of you. I'll take care of you forever."
And slowly, carefully, he used the shard to cut a small wound in the soft skin of her neck.
SCENE 9
The moment Rupert Giles stormed into his pupil's office after he had learned from the imprisoned orderlies in D ward where their escaped patient William Byron was heading, right after he had climbed 23 floors worth of staircases to reach her, the moment he pushed open that door and rushed inside and saw what the deranged young man had done, that was the moment in which his belief in his own morals started to crumble.
At first, he couldn't believe what he saw, and he lifted his glasses as if the horrible images that flooded into him to burn forever in his memories must have been distortions, his own frightening delusions. But after he batted his eyes, they were still there and they were real.
The room looked as it had been struck by disaster; files and documents scattered over the floor, dark stains covering some of them. A man lay face up on the ground. A larger, darker blot was soaked in his shirt. His eyes were open, still and staring. Between his brows was a gaping hole, not large, not small, but lethal enough. Besides a small tickle of blood running into those staring eyes, there wasn't a lot of blood.
His last expression was one of utter bewilderment.
Giles took his gaze off Liam's body. He had been a doctor for a good twenty- two years. He had seen dead people before, but never did he witness such a violent death. He knew that man. He had spoken to him in the past on more than one occasion. Death was something so much more horrific when it happened to the ones you knew. He turned around, appalled by the brutal scene.
And then he caught sight of Buffy.
She was lying in the arms of the escaped inmate, her arms and legs hung limp. Her head was sagged to one side. There was blood covering her all over. So much blood. It marked her back and it ran freely from an oozing slash on her throat. It dripped from her chin onto the boy's lap. William looked up at them, a dull gaze in his eyes. His lips were fouled a deep colour crimson. He held his wrist frantically above Buffy's parted lips, and a slow trickle of his blood dripped into her mouth.
Giles told the orderlies to drag the mad young man away from her.
"NO!!" The condemned boy shouted, blood (HER blood, the doctor realized and the very thought revolted him) and spittle dripping down his lips. "DON'T! DON'T TAKE HER AWAY FROM ME! I'M NOT FINISHED YET!"
The doctor sent one of his men to call for medical assistance. He then crouched down and attended his pupil. All the while, William was screaming, fighting off the men who restrained him, spitting and rambling like a madman.
"WATCHER!? WATCHER!!! DON'T STAKE HER! DON'T KILL HER!! SHE'S NOT TURNED YET! DON'T TAKE HER AWAY FROM ME!! DON'T LET HER DIE! DON'T LET HER DIE!!"
Giles rose from his spot by Buffy's side. His appearance was calm, almost distant. He moved like a ghost. He turned to William, who was still kept down by the orderlies, still frantically struggling to get back to her.
"Don't stake her." William pleaded, murmuring as the doctor came so close that he could hear him grinding his teeth. "Watcher, don't stake her. She's Buffy, she's your Slayer. I didn't mean to turn her. I didn't want to. But she was dying and she couldn't die because I love her and she told me she loved me and she is the only one who can See me watcher, truly See me. Don't let her die watcher I'll save her, listen to me and LET ME SAVE HER!! Let me give her my blood and then it's done and she'll live, don't kill her because she's your Slayer and I turned her LET ME GO TO HER WATCHER LET ME SAVE HER GOD DAMMIT!! DON"T LET HER DIE!!! WATCHER DON'T LET HER DIE!!!!!"
Giles' hand struck out and hit William hard, right on his temple. His head sagged to one side and William batted his eyes, confused by the Watcher's sudden outburst of violence, but he continued pleading. The doctor was not listening. He heard nothing else but his sorrow and his own cry for retribution. Another blow fell down on William, and another. They were barely perceived with pain, but it slowed him down, crippled his frenzied thoughts. Eventually, his rambling ceased, and the room became much darker as he lost his consciousness.
SCENE 10
The plan was relatively simple.
Tara and Willow had been busy remaking the potion all night, the demon downstairs in the cellar was milked out to the point of dehydration, and Xander was close to collapsing on the spot, the dark half moon bags under his eyes and the unstoppable yawning a good indication of his need for a good long snooze. Dawn had already dozed off in her room; she had locked herself in following the tiring argument with her older sister. Buffy herself was also at the brink of exhaustion; first the fighting with that glarkul-what-me-nick demon while having a much unwanted conversation with her ex-vampire lover, then the disaster and having to drag said vampire the whole way back to her home TWICE. She had, in one night, literally wiped out the entire population of a rare demon species only to get the antidote for the blond Irritating One AND battled a horde of Biker type pyromaniac monsters to save Spike's delusional ass. It was 6:30 in the morning, and Buffy was beyond tired.
If this final batch of antidote wasn't able to cure him, if he was going to spill it again or worse, refuse to swallow it down, she didn't know what she would do.
Probably choke him to a second death, she assumed.
Buffy stood in the kitchen, cutting off an arm-long section from her garden- hose with a very blunt pair of scissors. Tara came in, feet shoving over the tiles, her long hair dangling in front of her drowsy eyes in unruly strands. She held a coffee-mug in her hands and wandered over to the kitchen-counter, took the can with the stale brown liquid from the coffeemaker, and poured herself a cup-full.
Buffy glanced over at the witch taking a swig from her coffee, and immediately panicked.
"No! Don't drink that! That's the antidote!"
"Huh? Oh! Oh yuck!"
Tara made an appalled face and spun around to spit it out in the sink.
"Don't! Spit it back in the mug!"
Tara knitted her brows, giving Buffy a "You must be kidding me" look, but then realized why they should be very careful with the final batch of antidote and spat the offensive tasting fluid back into her mug.
"Good Goddess! I'm so sorry right now that we didn't had the time to give this stuff a better taste! This is so very disgusting!!"
Buffy came rushing to her, took the mug out of her hands and put it away somewhere safe. She then handed the weary witch a glass of water that she gratefully accepted, using it to wash the bitter tang out of her mouth.
"Anything could have been better than this sewage taste!" Tara mumbled, filling her glass again under the tap. "It's like kissing a swamp-monster with really bad dental hygiene!"
"Willow did mention she wanted to give it a little strawberry flavour. Personally, I don't think you or Spike would have noticed it between the fine overwhelming aroma of fresh animal dung and sweating cheese. Toxic demon glands are tricky ingredients to work with."
She gave Tara a friendly smile and watched how the witch worked down her second glass of water.
"I'm sorry. I was not thinking clearly." Tara apologized.
"It's Okay. You guys have been up the whole night. Everybody is tired."
"Yes, but it's so stupid. I've put it in there myself to keep it warm."
"Hey, at least you didn't swallow it. Who knows how long you would have been stuck in my bathroom."
"So." Tara asked carefully, as she noticed the piece of cut tube lying on the counter. "We're sticking to the plan?"
"Yep, I don't see any other way to make sure he gets all the antidote. We'll have to force it down. Can you still concentrate enough to cast the binding spell on him?"
Tara nodded, but seemed not at ease by the idea.
"You know, maybe we could just hold him down in a natural way, without the magic? Xander and Willow could both -"
"Spike is too strong for that." Buffy interrupted. "He'll just fight them off and spill the last batch of antidote all over my mom's difficult- to- clean bed sheets again. Just like last time."
"Well, you're going to help out this time, aren't you?" Tara looked at her, a bit embarrassed by her own directness. "I mean, I know you don't want to see him, but you do want to help him, right?"
There was a short silence and Buffy turned away from the witch. "I do." Buffy said softly, and she put the scissors back into the drawer. "I do want him to get better. Really, it's my fault he's ailing upstairs." Buffy picked up a dishcloth and started wiping the already spotless surface of the counter in frantic movements. "The least I can do is shove a tube down to his stomach and force-feed him with something that smells and taste like sewage water."
"Buffy." Tara hesitated. "I don't want to put that spell on him again. He was hurting himself when he pulled on the chains."
Buffy's cleaning spree slowed down a little, but she didn't turn around to face Tara.
"You know, Buffy. This thing you and Spike have together, I know you don't consider it to be something real, but he does. He really does. Perhaps you should talk to him after he's, you know, sane again and less -" The witch paused, searching for a word to describe what she had sensed in the heartbroken vampire. "Less devastated."
"Devastated?"
"He was really hurt that you didn't want anybody to know about you two. He told me."
"You talked to him? You talked to Spike about this?" Buffy had finally turned around now. She crossed her arms over her chest and gazed at Tara with an incredulous look on her face. "And you actually listened to him?"
"I was just trying to help. You should have seen him, Buffy. He was so sad and angry when he was talking about it. It's - it's not healthy for him."
"Tara, whatever Spike and I ever had, that wasn't healthy." She tossed the dishcloth into the sink and stared at her, not angry with the witch because she knew that this wasn't her fault that she felt this way, so confused and so full of self-loathing whenever her relationship with the blond vampire was mentioned, but she couldn't remain perfectly calm either. "It was abusive and destructive. But it's over. I got over it. And he should get over it too. It's the only way."
"Spike doesn't think it's over. He still believes you care about him."
The witch looked at the Slayer and then added; " I think he still loves you."
"I know." Buffy answered, her expression bleak.
"But I can't love him back. I really can't."
"So I'm afraid there will be no happy ending for either of us."
SCENE 11
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Tell me, watcher, is it winter?
Say how long has been my sleep?
Load my memory with shame
Speak but to curse my hated name
Leave me in chains and darkness now
And when my very soul is worn
When reason's light had left my brow
And madness cannot feel thy scorn.
Gaze on the wretch - recall to mind
His golden days, left long behind.
Fragments from The Gondal poems - Emily Brontë, 1840
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The Punishment that followed was absolutely horrible.
He was put away again, first in the familiar little white room with the soft padding on the walls and floor. He spent four whole days and nights in there, lying curled up on the ground, kept in a sweltering straightjacket that allowed him not even the slightest movement with his upper limps. After the second day, the muscles in his arms started to cramp. On the third day it hurt so bad that he tried to get up to remove the pressure off them, but he was too drugged to lift himself off the floor. The staff ignored him most of the time, only came into the room once in the twelve hours to give him injections in order to keep him sedated. He would have screamed Her name till his voice was hoarse and ruined if they didn't.
On the fourth day, they came with a wheelchair, picked him up from the floor, and transferred him to another ward.
There, he was taken to a grey cell, for it was too stripped of any basic comfort to call it something else. They removed his jacket and placed him on a bunk bed, tying him down with leather straps. By now, the drugs started to ware off and he could think a little, hold on to his thoughts longer than an irritably short few seconds. He watched how the orderlies secured the straps around his wrists and his ankles. They so worked fast. Soon he will be left alone again. He had to hurry.
"Where -" His voice was weak, no more but a moan. Not loud enough to be heard. He licked his lips anxiously and swallowed. That thought, that one very important thought, it would slip away easily. He had to concentrate. He had to ask before it was gone.
"Where - is -"
The men either didn't hear or ignored him, and he watched how they started to wrap the last three leather belts around his chest with a growing sense of panic. The window into consciousness, into the real world, was only small and the black wind that swept him away from it came in regular tides. There was only a short time in this endlessness of times, in which he was allowed to perceive anything, sense anything. Only then he could dig into his memories and find the one thought he must hold on to, no matter what happened.
A woman came to him. He couldn't remember who she was, only that she wasn't Her. So he tried again, forcefully straining his mouth and tongue to formulate a question. He uttered something, a string of odd sounds and noises, only to discover that he had lost all memory of language, either English or others. He failed to capture her attention, and the woman went away. The men who had brought him here in this bitter place started to leave too. Only one stayed briefly behind, and stabbed his arm with a cold needle. He whimpered a little, not because of the pain. He had already lost track of his body. It didn't seem to belong to him anymore. Even the soreness in his arms seemed not to be his own.
It was because he believed that he was being Punished.
They were punishing him most wickedly, not by placing him in this horrible barren cell, not by denying him his freedom and dignity by restraining him down to the bed like a disobedient dog. Not even by eliminating his mind by succumbing him to a constant assault of sedatives.
No, their Punishment was far crueler than that.
They simply denied him the knowledge of what had happened to Her.
In that ignorance that was filled with gruelling doubts and agonizing fear, he was kept for a period of longer than a month. By the time they allowed him to sit in an upright position again and he was put on milder sedatives, most of his memory was gone, which was perhaps more a blessing than a cruelty. His mind was in ruins, and he suffered from nervousness that made his body tremble and sweat almost constantly. However, he was finally able to hold on to his thoughts and he asked them the one thing he could remember clearly because it was so important, because it was the only thing he needed to know to put his mind at easy. He asked one of the orderlies why She didn't come to see him, and the man told him. He didn't understand his answer, so he asked another member of the staff, and he told him the very same thing. He didn't want to believe both of them. He became very angry and he started to shout that they were bloody liars, and they had to restrain him and strap him back to the bed.
The next morning, the woman came back. By that time he had completely forgotten that he had already asked and received an answer to his question, and he asked her again about Her. He actually begged her to tell him, he really needed to know.
Dr Walsh studied her patient's ill obsessive behaviour with much interest. It seemed to her that patient 17's perception of reality had been warped by his horrible experience, and he was no longer able to accept any knowledge that would cause him great anxiety. He was trapped in a never-ending spiral of constant quest and denial. It occurred to her that he also kept asking for a man he considered being "the Watcher".
"The Watcher knows." He muttered to her, and his eyes begged her to understand the urgency of the situation. "He knows where She is. Please. Bring me to him."
"Then She will come back. Then I can find Her."
SCENE 12
"I thought that I already had handed over everything that concerned the Byron case to you. What else is left for us to discuss?"
"I'm not here to acquire information about my new patient." Dr Walsh said. She was a little astounded by the harsh tune Dr Rupert Giles had adapted, only because she had dropped the name Byron. On second thought, she wasn't entirely surprised. Dr Giles had always been more a consultant for the people than a scientist; the man was so full of morals and feelings. She could imagine that the most tragic incident concerning patient 17 and his young protégée could not have left the good doctor untouched. Otherwise, he wouldn't have handed his wretched patient over to her care so easily. She was well aware that the man didn't like her and didn't approve of the manner she treated her patients. Secretly, she asked herself if it wasn't for the fact that he had such an ill contempt for her adapted ward policies that he had actually agreed in her request to transfer the dangerous inmate to her wards.
"Well then, why are you here?" Giles enquired, his brow arched in an annoyed bow.
"I've discovered that he's suffering from an odd type of obsessive behaviour. He constantly asks people around him about the fate of Dr Summers, but when he's told the truth, he cannot cope and starts forgetting so he's able to deal with it. Only his guilt doesn't allow him to rest before he finds out what has happened to her and so he's doomed to ask and know and then forget again. Patient 17 has trapped himself in a downward spiral of thinking patterns."
Giles walked away from behind his desk, his face not showing any other emotion but disinterest.
"How does that concern me? I've already handed his case over to you."
"I came here to ask you for help."
He stood by the window now, looking outside with his back turned to Dr Walsh. He didn't answer. He must loathe him now, she thought, this sick young man he had treated with nothing but kindness and trust had betrayed him by showing his true dangerous nature, and now he hates him so much because of that betrayal that he doesn't want to have anything to do with him any longer. In William Byron, she now understood, Rupert Giles could only see the source of his own shame; his own flaws that had made him partly responsible for this tragedy.
It roused her curiosity, how much the good doctor must loathe her, for reminding him of that shame.
"Patient 17 is also asking for someone who he calls the Watcher." She explained. "I've read in the statements given by the staff present at that time that they had actually heard William Byron referring to you as the Watcher. I believe that we have a chance to break this psychological downward spiral of my patient, if you where the one who would bring him the news about Dr Summers."
"I will not tell him." His voice was like frosted stone.
"It's for the good of the patient, Dr Giles."
"It's cruelty." Giles turned around and gazed at her, his eyes blazing behind his spectacles. Gone was his calm and indifference. "It's spiteful! That's what it is."
"Patient 17 needs to reacquire his ability to perceive reality. He needs to learn to deal with it. Otherwise his healing process is stagnant!"
"And you would mind that?" Giles batted his eyes in sardonically played disbelief. "Really? I thought you were more the type of true scientist who would merely stamp the case closed as it is and lock the wretched boy up in some place where daylight would never reach! Is that not the kind of treatment you wanted for dangerous inmates like him in the first place? You did tell me that once before!"
"Dr Giles!" She noticed she was sounding shrill and far too offensively loud. "I take no joy out of what happened!"
There was a moment of silence. Giles slumped back into his chair. His shoulders sagged as he rubbed his eyes tiredly.
"Now please." She continued, in a softer voice. "Stop creating such a scene. You're making yourself ridiculous."
She stared at him, and saw that he was starting to break down. His face grew grey and warped by grief.
"You have to assist me in this matter. For the sake of the patient." She said, and waited.
She knew he had no other option.
SCENE 13
The doctor had trouble recognizing the patient that was brought into his office, a frail and trembling boy, strapped down in a wheelchair. His eyes were dull and lay deep sunken in a face that gleamed with grease and sweat. His hands were relentlessly twining the fabric of his trousers together in his lap. The pitiful appearance of this miserable being gave the doctor merely a glimpse of his total torment.
Giles slipped down in front of him. He rested his hands on both arms of the chair and gently spoke the patient's name.
"William? Can you hear me?"
He nodded, slowly.
"Were you looking for me, William? Did you want to speak to the Watcher?"
He nodded again but more eagerly this time, and for a moment, the deadness in his eyes ebbed away and was replaced by a spark of hopefulness.
"Giles?" He muttered. "Watcher?"
"Yes, I suppose that's me."
"Giles!" He was getting more lucid now. "It's you! It's really you!" He swallowed, and his eyes darted up to the woman who had brought him here. "He's the Watcher, right?" He asked her almost timidly. "I'm not away again. I'm not crazy?"
Dr Walsh smiled at him. "Yes, I told you I would let you see the Watcher. It's really him. Don't you worry."
"Right." He sighed in great relief and nodded. "William is a good boy. A good boy." He looked up at her and said hopefully; "I'm a good boy?"
"Yes you are. Now ask the watcher what you want to know, and he will tell you. He will tell you the truth."
He stared at her for a while with obvious anxiety. Then he flicked his worried eyes back at the doctor, while chewing on his lower lip.
"Come on, don't waste the good doctor's time! Go ask him!"
He scraped his teeth over his tongue and shyly he took his gaze to the ground. "Buffy." He fearfully muttered. "Giles, can you tell me where she is? Where I can find her? I've tried. Tried to find her. I looked everywhere. But this place is a maze. I got lost." He looked down at his damp hands, twisting white cotton between his fingers. "Please. Tell me? She hasn't come to see me while I was away. I don't know what happened to her."
Giles gave the unscrupulous Dr Walsh a long scornful look, his jaw stiffening. Why was it so, he thought, that in the end cruelty and hate had to triumph over kindness and care? And why was he himself allowing this cruelty to take place? The boy was completely miserable. He had been punished enough. But then he recalled the final moments of his beloved pupil, her blood that had tainted this boy's mouth and the madness that had blazed in these smouldering eyes, and the doctor stopped hesitating.
"Buffy is dead, William."
There was only blankness around the mouth. His pale blue eyes stared at him.
"Did you hear me William? Buffy is dead!"
He stirred, and slowly, he started to shake his head.
"For Christ's sake! Listen to me boy!" The doctor was seized by a sudden anger and grabbed the trembling young man by his arms.
"No no no no no no, can't be." He tilted his head and nudged his ear on his shoulder. He didn't want to hear this. "Not true. Not true!!"
"She's dead!" Giles said, and he shook him, his fingers digging into his arms till red marks appeared. "She could have been saved but she bled to death because of you! You crazy idiot!"
"Not true!" he yelled, his eyes large and pleading. "Please! Not true! Not true!"
"It is true!" Giles spat. "You killed her with your foolish delusions! Don't you remember?! Can't you remember what you have done to her?!"
The boy was frantically panting now, rocking himself in the wheelchair as much as his restrains allowed him to. His head twitched in rigid movements while he begged with wide-open eyes.
Giles watched how the young man slowly succumbed to his destructive words. How it ruined him. He felt no joy, although for a very wicked moment before, he had thought he might. Now the anger was gone, leaving behind the pain and the shame. It seemed that to him that there was never a possible escape from those two.
The doctor staggered back up, looking down at the patient who was now completely silent. The rusty joints of the chair squeaked while the boy kept rocking himself.
"She could have been saved." Giles muttered. "If only I could have saved her. I let you kill her. I killed her."
A small whimper came from the sorrowful patient. It was followed by a loud sob after which he was quickly reduced to wretched tears.
Giles looked up at Dr Walsh, his stance resentful and hostile.
"That went rather well." She said, unblinking." I believe we might have a break-through here, don't you think?"
There were only two words left in the world the good doctor could say to her. He pointed at the door, his finger trembling.
"GET. OUT!"
TBC
All right, I told you guys that this update would be the final one, but I've overdone myself once again and I've made this part much too elaborate. So I've decided to add one last chapter and a short epilogue to this story. It will be published as soon as I get the time to write it down (Yep, holidays are over, it's back to slave-labour again). Don't worry. I'll get him back home in Sunny D by the end.
Cheers Richard.
AUTHOR: Richard Bachman
EMAIL: bachman_rchard@hotmail.com
SITE: nope
FEEDBACK: Give it to me luv, you know you want more of this.
DISTRIBUTION: Do whatever you like poodle. As long as Richard is mentioned I'm fine. SUMMARY: Based on the episode Normal Again. Instead of Buffy, Spike was poisoned by the demon and his consciousness was transported into an alternative reality where he found himself incarcerated in an asylum.
THANK YOU: For all of your patience, your support and your comments on the story.
WARNING: (Multiple) Character death.
Witness ACT 9; And so it ends (part III).
SCENE 8
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Like a false guard, false watch keeping
Still in strife, she whispered peace
She would sing while I was weeping
If I listened, she would cease.
False was she, and unrelenting
When my last joys strewed the ground
Even sorrow saw, repenting
Those sad relics scattered round.
Hope, whose whisper would have given
Balm to all my frenzied pain
Stretched her wings, and soared to heaven
Went, and never returned again.
Hope - Emily Brontë, 1846
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
He watched how the black metal disappeared inside Angelus' chest. Blood spurted outward in a little stream, and a red stain bloomed like a rose on his Sire's shirt. Angelus' eyes flicked down, his mouth drew open as if trying to scream, but the only sound that he was able to utter was a slow wet gurgling. His hand shook violently as he raised it, his movement sluggish, and touched where the iron railroad spike lay imbedded inside his flesh. He blinked as he lifted his hand and saw it tainted deep crimson. He looked as if he was surprised by this injury. Then blood gushed from his mouth, and he slumped, his entire weight crushing down on his Childe, who kept watching his Sire's demise with wide shocked eyes, his hands still resting on the slippery end of the metal.
It was only when Angelus' blood dripped from his lips into William's eyes that he was abruptly pulled out of his stun, and he pushed off the dying body in an almost terrified motion. He rolled away from underneath, barely able to muffle a cry as the taller man's legs sagged over his own injured limp. He crawled away from the motionless figure, bits of blood-tainted documents sticking on to his sweat and blood rusted clothes as he moved toward Buffy, who was now inching toward him despite of her restrains, her face awfully pale.
"Buffy" He whispered, and ran his hand through her hair that pasted down over her face in damp strings. "Buffy are you all right? Please tell he didn't hurt you, please tell me he didn't, please." He untied her hands and feet while he kept murmuring to her. When she didn't react, he gently caressed her face, wiping his blood over her flushed cheeks as he tried to stop her stream of tears. Buffy looked at him, her expression blank, but as she listened to his whispered words her resolve broke down and she slumped over to him, pressing herself against his shaking form and started sobbing.
"Don't cry." William begged, frightened by her tears. He was so confused. "Please don't cry. Don't. No need to. Not anymore."
He wrapped his hands around her, and held her as if she was a small child that needed comforting, just like she had held him so many times before, and slowly, gently, he started rocking her in his arms.
From over his shoulder, Buffy could see through the haze of her tears Angelus' still form, lying face down on a pile of cluttered documents. A dark stain appeared underneath him, spreading itself in a wide circle over the white sheets of paper.
"What have you done." She whispered, her voice almost impassive as if frozen.
He gave no answer and kept cradling her in his arms. She pushed herself away from his embrace and stared in his face. He looked at her, his eyes big and frightened. He seemed so small, almost like a child.
"Oh William, what have you done."
"I didn't -" He hesitated. He couldn't explain to her what he had done. He hardly understood it himself. He had killed. He had murdered the one man that had been a brother and a friend to him ever since he could remember his own existence. All these memories, of a shared childhood, of friendship, of being a family, seemed all that remained after the anger and fear for the monster had disappeared, after all the dark nightmare visions of the demon Angelus had died with one thrust through the heart. He couldn't make himself to turn around to look at the body. It was Liam's body now that lay there, becoming cold and rigid, as the life's spirit leaked away in flows of crimson. How could he explain it to her, how could he still tell her that he was a good man?
How could she ever be able love this monster?
"I didn't want to -" He finally whispered, his throat working. "Oh God, Buffy I didn't want to -" He broke down in tears, his by guilt tormented mind close to being ruined. "Don't tell me I'm a monster Buffy! Don't tell me I'm an evil soulless thing! I did this, I did this only so he wouldn't hurt you, I wanted to kill him and I was bad, Buffy. I was a bad man because I wanted revenge and I wanted to hate, I was so stupid, SO STUPID! To listen to those voices, listen to her, but I won't, not anymore, I will be good. Buffy I can be good, I promise. Please I beg you, don't leave me, don't, please, don't tell me I'm a monster, don't tell me I'm beneath you! See me, you have to See me, you're the only one who ever could. I'm not a bad man Buffy, I'm not a bad man.."
He kept his eyes to the ground, afraid to look into hers. His shoulders sagged and shook violently as he was struck by grief. "Liam." He muttered. "Poor Liam. Oh God!"
He covered his face with his blood-drenched hands, and sobbed silently. Dark thoughts clouded his mind that was now awfully still. No more chanting, no more whispers. Everything inside was silent and dead like a grave.
She placed her soft hands on his cheeks. It surprised him that she still wanted to touch him.
"Shshsh." She wrapped her arms him, and pressed her chin on his head. "It's all right. It's okay. I won't leave you."
She held his body closer to her now, caressing him quietly, calmly, easing away his anxiety. They sat there for a while, holding each other in the darkness of the room with only her gentle words breaking the silence.
"Shshshsh. Quiet now. There are no demons, no voices anymore. Everything is quiet."
His sobbing finally ceased. He tilted his chin and looked up at her.
"I won't leave you." She whispered. "I would never leave you."
Her eyes, beautiful and deep, they were still like before. They had not changed.
"I love you, William."
She still saw him.
In her eyes, he was still a good man.
A smile dawned on her lips. She was so lovely when she smiled. Her smile could brighten his darkest moods. She tilted her head to one side and her hand lifted to caress his cheek. Her movements were slow but elegant, like in a dream. To him, it was a dream. Everything besides her had ceased to exist. But then the broadening smile on her face suddenly froze. Her eyes grew wide. He didn't understand this. Hardly heard the roaring of the gunshot behind him. He stared at Buffy and didn't understand why she wasn't smiling at him anymore, but couldn't hear her shouting at him. Her mouth moved, but there was no sound. Everything was silent. She threw herself over his body, protecting him from the bullet that was meant to take his life, but instead hit her now in the back and pierced her spine.
Buffy slumped against his shoulders. Her hands slipped down, letting go of him, and sagged till they hung limply by her side. Then she fell. He watched how she fell and it seemed to take forever and ever. Her hand brushed over his arm as she fell, and when she was finally down on the floor, William saw how her eyes kept looking at him. Seeing him. And then they closed.
No, he thought, this can't be. Not possible. She said she would never leave. Never die. She died before. She can't come back. She can't die. She loved me. She loves me.
"WILLIAM!"
Angelus, swaying on his feet, his hand pressing onto his wound, blood escaping between his trembling fingers. He stumbled toward him with his gun raised and already thumbing back the hammer.
On the spot where he had fallen, there lay not the blackened piece of iron, the railroad spike William thought that he had used as a weapon to bring his Sire's demise, but a short red tainted glass shard. It had been discarded. It had only penetrated a few inches into Angelus' flesh and ruptured his lungs, but it had never been able to reach his heart.
"WILLIAM!!" He roared, and dark spittle flew from his lips as he spoke his name like a curse. "YOU TREACHEROUS RAT!!!"
William flashed his eyes up to the murderous vampire and saw him holding the gun.
He killed her.
His thoughts went wild, uncontrollable as they were mangled in this torturous pain and anger.
HE KILLED HER!!
His face abruptly changed from grief-struck into something terrible, and when Angelus was close enough and pulled the trigger he was suddenly hit by fear as he saw the look in his Childe's eyes.
There was madness and death in those cold piercing eyes.
This time, as the gun roared and the shot was fired, William was aware of his peril and dodged, flinging his body to the side. The bullet missed him completely and Angelus let out an enraged scream. With bloodshot eyes, he scanned the floor for William's movements, and once again he raised his weapon and aimed at his Childe's head.
Before he could pull the trigger for a second time, William launched himself at his legs, smashing his shoulders against the kneecaps. Angelus swayed, and fell down to the floor with the murder-weapon still clutched in his hand.
"NO!" He bellowed, a deranged anger burning inside. His eyes flashed gold in the shadow that swept over his face as William loomed over and to smash his temple. "YOU KILLED HER!" His maddened Childe shouted, and his hands flew around his neck. "SHE LOVED ME!!" William yelled, and tears started to fall. "SHE LOVED ME AND YOU KILLED HER!!" His grip was cold, his fingers were like knives, cutting through the weak tissue till they reached bone. Angelus struggled for breath, legs and arms moving, shuddering violently. Such impudence! He thought hatefully. Despite of the agony and fear, he was enraged. How dare he! How dare he to defy him!! Him! Angelus! Without him he would have been nothing! Nothing but a long since deceased Victorian ghost! The claws on his neck then started to crush his bones. Angelus clutched with one hand onto his Childe's face, and pushed his fingers into the eyes. NOTHING! YOU'RE NOTHING AND NEVER WILL YOU BECOME MORE THAN THAT!! And the words sounded like thunder in his head, but from his lips, they parted in a weak whisper as his already wounded lungs were in a desperate need for oxygen.
"MURDERER!!"
William struck him on his cheek. His head swayed to the side by the violent impact. Lines blurred for a moment. Then, as his vision steadied, he saw his arm stretched out in front, holding on to the gun. With an enraged roar he swung it toward William's head to smash it.
William was captured in a dream again. No, not a dream, a nightmare. But as he saw Angelus raise his arm that was holding the weapon, his hands slipped off his Sire's throat and seized it, capturing his wrist. Bones there were fragile. They broke so easily. He twisted Sire's hand and there was a most delicious sound, a crackling like burning timber on a warm fire. A cry then followed, but to William that cry had no meaning.
Angelus' grip over the weapon faltered, and suddenly, William found himself holding it. The smooth warm metal lay in his hand and waited, eager to be used. Like in a dream, he lowered it then, aiming it at the face of the monster, aiming it at his brother's face. Hazel eyes grew large. Harsh lines disappeared around the corners of the mouth, his brows, and with that, cruelty seeped away from his features. Gone was his destructive hate and rage. And suddenly, all there was left was this man, lying on his back in front of him, wounded and scared and bleeding, nursing the broken wrist with his good hand.
This man stared into the barrel of the gun he held, petrified, then he gazed up, wary and confused as if he had just awakened from a deep sleep, and a trace of relief flashed in his eyes as he recognized him.
"Will?" Liam's voice trembled, but there was no more fear, only confusion. "William? What happened? I can't remember."
William's dream was shattered. The man's words pierced through his dream like bullets ripped through flesh.
"No." William muttered, and shook his head, fervently. "No no no no no no. You can't. You can't do this."
He fired. The loud blast made him flinch and he squinted his eyes. Tiny specks of blood rained on his face like a fountain.
Then it was silent again.
He stood there for a while, not moving, hardly aware of the slow trickle of warm blood running down his ruined leg, not noticing that he was trembling and panting like wolf. He stood there and stared at nothing but darkness, listened to nothing but darkness. Somehow, he thought that he finally was at peace.
But then a sound came, a shift of flesh over fabric, hustling paper, followed by a soft sigh. He turned around, slowly. The gun was suddenly heavy, a weight too great to bear for his blood drenched hand. He dropped it.
A second sigh, followed by a weak pull of breath. William struggled toward the source of those tiny sounds, slightly limping. Behind the ruined desk, in front of the couch, Buffy was still lying on her side, the collar and the back of her shirt tainted dark, but her chest was rising and falling in a weak pace.
"Buffy!"
She didn't open her eyes and William dropped on his knees in front of her. Gently, he lifted her head and held her in his lap, caressing her damp hair and face to comfort her. Her lips were moving and she was whispering something. He brought his ear close to her lips and listened. Her breath was still warm, but however hard he tried, however quiet he forced himself to be, he couldn't hear what she was trying to tell him. Her voice had already grown too weak to be understood.
What he did understand was that she was dying.
She was dying in his arms and there was nothing, nothing he could do to save her.
He shut his eyes, tears burning behind them, and he saw, he remembered what he had witnessed once in that frightening dream, that nightmare vision. Buffy, floating on her back in a black silver sea. Her body motionless as she was dragged further and further away from him by the waves. And then a merciless sun, that rose above the water and burnt her, destroyed her, right before his eyes.
"Don't go." And his tears fell on her cheek, glided down her chin and ran down into her neck. "Don't leave me. You promised you wouldn't. Please. I can never be anyone without you." His fingers traced his tears along her skin, along the frail muscles of her neck. He remembered the scarf that she had worn that night, in his dream. That crimson scarf taken from one of their victims, slivering down her pale neck like flowing blood. His hand trembled as he found the pulse underneath her skin. It was so weak, so fragile. So close to death. "I won't let you leave me." He said, and he swallowed, tightening his jaws. "I won't let you die again."
He found the shard half buried underneath the tarnished documents. He brought it with him as he went back to her. Holding her gently, he loosened the first two buttons of her shirt, and tilted her head slightly to bare her throat. Buffy's eyelids fluttered as he did this, and a soft moan escaped her lips.
"Shshshsh." He comforted her. "Quiet luv. It's all right. Everything is going to be all right again."
He pressed a tender kiss on her forehead and said. "I won't let you die. I promise I'll take care of you. I'll take care of you forever."
And slowly, carefully, he used the shard to cut a small wound in the soft skin of her neck.
SCENE 9
The moment Rupert Giles stormed into his pupil's office after he had learned from the imprisoned orderlies in D ward where their escaped patient William Byron was heading, right after he had climbed 23 floors worth of staircases to reach her, the moment he pushed open that door and rushed inside and saw what the deranged young man had done, that was the moment in which his belief in his own morals started to crumble.
At first, he couldn't believe what he saw, and he lifted his glasses as if the horrible images that flooded into him to burn forever in his memories must have been distortions, his own frightening delusions. But after he batted his eyes, they were still there and they were real.
The room looked as it had been struck by disaster; files and documents scattered over the floor, dark stains covering some of them. A man lay face up on the ground. A larger, darker blot was soaked in his shirt. His eyes were open, still and staring. Between his brows was a gaping hole, not large, not small, but lethal enough. Besides a small tickle of blood running into those staring eyes, there wasn't a lot of blood.
His last expression was one of utter bewilderment.
Giles took his gaze off Liam's body. He had been a doctor for a good twenty- two years. He had seen dead people before, but never did he witness such a violent death. He knew that man. He had spoken to him in the past on more than one occasion. Death was something so much more horrific when it happened to the ones you knew. He turned around, appalled by the brutal scene.
And then he caught sight of Buffy.
She was lying in the arms of the escaped inmate, her arms and legs hung limp. Her head was sagged to one side. There was blood covering her all over. So much blood. It marked her back and it ran freely from an oozing slash on her throat. It dripped from her chin onto the boy's lap. William looked up at them, a dull gaze in his eyes. His lips were fouled a deep colour crimson. He held his wrist frantically above Buffy's parted lips, and a slow trickle of his blood dripped into her mouth.
Giles told the orderlies to drag the mad young man away from her.
"NO!!" The condemned boy shouted, blood (HER blood, the doctor realized and the very thought revolted him) and spittle dripping down his lips. "DON'T! DON'T TAKE HER AWAY FROM ME! I'M NOT FINISHED YET!"
The doctor sent one of his men to call for medical assistance. He then crouched down and attended his pupil. All the while, William was screaming, fighting off the men who restrained him, spitting and rambling like a madman.
"WATCHER!? WATCHER!!! DON'T STAKE HER! DON'T KILL HER!! SHE'S NOT TURNED YET! DON'T TAKE HER AWAY FROM ME!! DON'T LET HER DIE! DON'T LET HER DIE!!"
Giles rose from his spot by Buffy's side. His appearance was calm, almost distant. He moved like a ghost. He turned to William, who was still kept down by the orderlies, still frantically struggling to get back to her.
"Don't stake her." William pleaded, murmuring as the doctor came so close that he could hear him grinding his teeth. "Watcher, don't stake her. She's Buffy, she's your Slayer. I didn't mean to turn her. I didn't want to. But she was dying and she couldn't die because I love her and she told me she loved me and she is the only one who can See me watcher, truly See me. Don't let her die watcher I'll save her, listen to me and LET ME SAVE HER!! Let me give her my blood and then it's done and she'll live, don't kill her because she's your Slayer and I turned her LET ME GO TO HER WATCHER LET ME SAVE HER GOD DAMMIT!! DON"T LET HER DIE!!! WATCHER DON'T LET HER DIE!!!!!"
Giles' hand struck out and hit William hard, right on his temple. His head sagged to one side and William batted his eyes, confused by the Watcher's sudden outburst of violence, but he continued pleading. The doctor was not listening. He heard nothing else but his sorrow and his own cry for retribution. Another blow fell down on William, and another. They were barely perceived with pain, but it slowed him down, crippled his frenzied thoughts. Eventually, his rambling ceased, and the room became much darker as he lost his consciousness.
SCENE 10
The plan was relatively simple.
Tara and Willow had been busy remaking the potion all night, the demon downstairs in the cellar was milked out to the point of dehydration, and Xander was close to collapsing on the spot, the dark half moon bags under his eyes and the unstoppable yawning a good indication of his need for a good long snooze. Dawn had already dozed off in her room; she had locked herself in following the tiring argument with her older sister. Buffy herself was also at the brink of exhaustion; first the fighting with that glarkul-what-me-nick demon while having a much unwanted conversation with her ex-vampire lover, then the disaster and having to drag said vampire the whole way back to her home TWICE. She had, in one night, literally wiped out the entire population of a rare demon species only to get the antidote for the blond Irritating One AND battled a horde of Biker type pyromaniac monsters to save Spike's delusional ass. It was 6:30 in the morning, and Buffy was beyond tired.
If this final batch of antidote wasn't able to cure him, if he was going to spill it again or worse, refuse to swallow it down, she didn't know what she would do.
Probably choke him to a second death, she assumed.
Buffy stood in the kitchen, cutting off an arm-long section from her garden- hose with a very blunt pair of scissors. Tara came in, feet shoving over the tiles, her long hair dangling in front of her drowsy eyes in unruly strands. She held a coffee-mug in her hands and wandered over to the kitchen-counter, took the can with the stale brown liquid from the coffeemaker, and poured herself a cup-full.
Buffy glanced over at the witch taking a swig from her coffee, and immediately panicked.
"No! Don't drink that! That's the antidote!"
"Huh? Oh! Oh yuck!"
Tara made an appalled face and spun around to spit it out in the sink.
"Don't! Spit it back in the mug!"
Tara knitted her brows, giving Buffy a "You must be kidding me" look, but then realized why they should be very careful with the final batch of antidote and spat the offensive tasting fluid back into her mug.
"Good Goddess! I'm so sorry right now that we didn't had the time to give this stuff a better taste! This is so very disgusting!!"
Buffy came rushing to her, took the mug out of her hands and put it away somewhere safe. She then handed the weary witch a glass of water that she gratefully accepted, using it to wash the bitter tang out of her mouth.
"Anything could have been better than this sewage taste!" Tara mumbled, filling her glass again under the tap. "It's like kissing a swamp-monster with really bad dental hygiene!"
"Willow did mention she wanted to give it a little strawberry flavour. Personally, I don't think you or Spike would have noticed it between the fine overwhelming aroma of fresh animal dung and sweating cheese. Toxic demon glands are tricky ingredients to work with."
She gave Tara a friendly smile and watched how the witch worked down her second glass of water.
"I'm sorry. I was not thinking clearly." Tara apologized.
"It's Okay. You guys have been up the whole night. Everybody is tired."
"Yes, but it's so stupid. I've put it in there myself to keep it warm."
"Hey, at least you didn't swallow it. Who knows how long you would have been stuck in my bathroom."
"So." Tara asked carefully, as she noticed the piece of cut tube lying on the counter. "We're sticking to the plan?"
"Yep, I don't see any other way to make sure he gets all the antidote. We'll have to force it down. Can you still concentrate enough to cast the binding spell on him?"
Tara nodded, but seemed not at ease by the idea.
"You know, maybe we could just hold him down in a natural way, without the magic? Xander and Willow could both -"
"Spike is too strong for that." Buffy interrupted. "He'll just fight them off and spill the last batch of antidote all over my mom's difficult- to- clean bed sheets again. Just like last time."
"Well, you're going to help out this time, aren't you?" Tara looked at her, a bit embarrassed by her own directness. "I mean, I know you don't want to see him, but you do want to help him, right?"
There was a short silence and Buffy turned away from the witch. "I do." Buffy said softly, and she put the scissors back into the drawer. "I do want him to get better. Really, it's my fault he's ailing upstairs." Buffy picked up a dishcloth and started wiping the already spotless surface of the counter in frantic movements. "The least I can do is shove a tube down to his stomach and force-feed him with something that smells and taste like sewage water."
"Buffy." Tara hesitated. "I don't want to put that spell on him again. He was hurting himself when he pulled on the chains."
Buffy's cleaning spree slowed down a little, but she didn't turn around to face Tara.
"You know, Buffy. This thing you and Spike have together, I know you don't consider it to be something real, but he does. He really does. Perhaps you should talk to him after he's, you know, sane again and less -" The witch paused, searching for a word to describe what she had sensed in the heartbroken vampire. "Less devastated."
"Devastated?"
"He was really hurt that you didn't want anybody to know about you two. He told me."
"You talked to him? You talked to Spike about this?" Buffy had finally turned around now. She crossed her arms over her chest and gazed at Tara with an incredulous look on her face. "And you actually listened to him?"
"I was just trying to help. You should have seen him, Buffy. He was so sad and angry when he was talking about it. It's - it's not healthy for him."
"Tara, whatever Spike and I ever had, that wasn't healthy." She tossed the dishcloth into the sink and stared at her, not angry with the witch because she knew that this wasn't her fault that she felt this way, so confused and so full of self-loathing whenever her relationship with the blond vampire was mentioned, but she couldn't remain perfectly calm either. "It was abusive and destructive. But it's over. I got over it. And he should get over it too. It's the only way."
"Spike doesn't think it's over. He still believes you care about him."
The witch looked at the Slayer and then added; " I think he still loves you."
"I know." Buffy answered, her expression bleak.
"But I can't love him back. I really can't."
"So I'm afraid there will be no happy ending for either of us."
SCENE 11
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Tell me, watcher, is it winter?
Say how long has been my sleep?
Load my memory with shame
Speak but to curse my hated name
Leave me in chains and darkness now
And when my very soul is worn
When reason's light had left my brow
And madness cannot feel thy scorn.
Gaze on the wretch - recall to mind
His golden days, left long behind.
Fragments from The Gondal poems - Emily Brontë, 1840
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The Punishment that followed was absolutely horrible.
He was put away again, first in the familiar little white room with the soft padding on the walls and floor. He spent four whole days and nights in there, lying curled up on the ground, kept in a sweltering straightjacket that allowed him not even the slightest movement with his upper limps. After the second day, the muscles in his arms started to cramp. On the third day it hurt so bad that he tried to get up to remove the pressure off them, but he was too drugged to lift himself off the floor. The staff ignored him most of the time, only came into the room once in the twelve hours to give him injections in order to keep him sedated. He would have screamed Her name till his voice was hoarse and ruined if they didn't.
On the fourth day, they came with a wheelchair, picked him up from the floor, and transferred him to another ward.
There, he was taken to a grey cell, for it was too stripped of any basic comfort to call it something else. They removed his jacket and placed him on a bunk bed, tying him down with leather straps. By now, the drugs started to ware off and he could think a little, hold on to his thoughts longer than an irritably short few seconds. He watched how the orderlies secured the straps around his wrists and his ankles. They so worked fast. Soon he will be left alone again. He had to hurry.
"Where -" His voice was weak, no more but a moan. Not loud enough to be heard. He licked his lips anxiously and swallowed. That thought, that one very important thought, it would slip away easily. He had to concentrate. He had to ask before it was gone.
"Where - is -"
The men either didn't hear or ignored him, and he watched how they started to wrap the last three leather belts around his chest with a growing sense of panic. The window into consciousness, into the real world, was only small and the black wind that swept him away from it came in regular tides. There was only a short time in this endlessness of times, in which he was allowed to perceive anything, sense anything. Only then he could dig into his memories and find the one thought he must hold on to, no matter what happened.
A woman came to him. He couldn't remember who she was, only that she wasn't Her. So he tried again, forcefully straining his mouth and tongue to formulate a question. He uttered something, a string of odd sounds and noises, only to discover that he had lost all memory of language, either English or others. He failed to capture her attention, and the woman went away. The men who had brought him here in this bitter place started to leave too. Only one stayed briefly behind, and stabbed his arm with a cold needle. He whimpered a little, not because of the pain. He had already lost track of his body. It didn't seem to belong to him anymore. Even the soreness in his arms seemed not to be his own.
It was because he believed that he was being Punished.
They were punishing him most wickedly, not by placing him in this horrible barren cell, not by denying him his freedom and dignity by restraining him down to the bed like a disobedient dog. Not even by eliminating his mind by succumbing him to a constant assault of sedatives.
No, their Punishment was far crueler than that.
They simply denied him the knowledge of what had happened to Her.
In that ignorance that was filled with gruelling doubts and agonizing fear, he was kept for a period of longer than a month. By the time they allowed him to sit in an upright position again and he was put on milder sedatives, most of his memory was gone, which was perhaps more a blessing than a cruelty. His mind was in ruins, and he suffered from nervousness that made his body tremble and sweat almost constantly. However, he was finally able to hold on to his thoughts and he asked them the one thing he could remember clearly because it was so important, because it was the only thing he needed to know to put his mind at easy. He asked one of the orderlies why She didn't come to see him, and the man told him. He didn't understand his answer, so he asked another member of the staff, and he told him the very same thing. He didn't want to believe both of them. He became very angry and he started to shout that they were bloody liars, and they had to restrain him and strap him back to the bed.
The next morning, the woman came back. By that time he had completely forgotten that he had already asked and received an answer to his question, and he asked her again about Her. He actually begged her to tell him, he really needed to know.
Dr Walsh studied her patient's ill obsessive behaviour with much interest. It seemed to her that patient 17's perception of reality had been warped by his horrible experience, and he was no longer able to accept any knowledge that would cause him great anxiety. He was trapped in a never-ending spiral of constant quest and denial. It occurred to her that he also kept asking for a man he considered being "the Watcher".
"The Watcher knows." He muttered to her, and his eyes begged her to understand the urgency of the situation. "He knows where She is. Please. Bring me to him."
"Then She will come back. Then I can find Her."
SCENE 12
"I thought that I already had handed over everything that concerned the Byron case to you. What else is left for us to discuss?"
"I'm not here to acquire information about my new patient." Dr Walsh said. She was a little astounded by the harsh tune Dr Rupert Giles had adapted, only because she had dropped the name Byron. On second thought, she wasn't entirely surprised. Dr Giles had always been more a consultant for the people than a scientist; the man was so full of morals and feelings. She could imagine that the most tragic incident concerning patient 17 and his young protégée could not have left the good doctor untouched. Otherwise, he wouldn't have handed his wretched patient over to her care so easily. She was well aware that the man didn't like her and didn't approve of the manner she treated her patients. Secretly, she asked herself if it wasn't for the fact that he had such an ill contempt for her adapted ward policies that he had actually agreed in her request to transfer the dangerous inmate to her wards.
"Well then, why are you here?" Giles enquired, his brow arched in an annoyed bow.
"I've discovered that he's suffering from an odd type of obsessive behaviour. He constantly asks people around him about the fate of Dr Summers, but when he's told the truth, he cannot cope and starts forgetting so he's able to deal with it. Only his guilt doesn't allow him to rest before he finds out what has happened to her and so he's doomed to ask and know and then forget again. Patient 17 has trapped himself in a downward spiral of thinking patterns."
Giles walked away from behind his desk, his face not showing any other emotion but disinterest.
"How does that concern me? I've already handed his case over to you."
"I came here to ask you for help."
He stood by the window now, looking outside with his back turned to Dr Walsh. He didn't answer. He must loathe him now, she thought, this sick young man he had treated with nothing but kindness and trust had betrayed him by showing his true dangerous nature, and now he hates him so much because of that betrayal that he doesn't want to have anything to do with him any longer. In William Byron, she now understood, Rupert Giles could only see the source of his own shame; his own flaws that had made him partly responsible for this tragedy.
It roused her curiosity, how much the good doctor must loathe her, for reminding him of that shame.
"Patient 17 is also asking for someone who he calls the Watcher." She explained. "I've read in the statements given by the staff present at that time that they had actually heard William Byron referring to you as the Watcher. I believe that we have a chance to break this psychological downward spiral of my patient, if you where the one who would bring him the news about Dr Summers."
"I will not tell him." His voice was like frosted stone.
"It's for the good of the patient, Dr Giles."
"It's cruelty." Giles turned around and gazed at her, his eyes blazing behind his spectacles. Gone was his calm and indifference. "It's spiteful! That's what it is."
"Patient 17 needs to reacquire his ability to perceive reality. He needs to learn to deal with it. Otherwise his healing process is stagnant!"
"And you would mind that?" Giles batted his eyes in sardonically played disbelief. "Really? I thought you were more the type of true scientist who would merely stamp the case closed as it is and lock the wretched boy up in some place where daylight would never reach! Is that not the kind of treatment you wanted for dangerous inmates like him in the first place? You did tell me that once before!"
"Dr Giles!" She noticed she was sounding shrill and far too offensively loud. "I take no joy out of what happened!"
There was a moment of silence. Giles slumped back into his chair. His shoulders sagged as he rubbed his eyes tiredly.
"Now please." She continued, in a softer voice. "Stop creating such a scene. You're making yourself ridiculous."
She stared at him, and saw that he was starting to break down. His face grew grey and warped by grief.
"You have to assist me in this matter. For the sake of the patient." She said, and waited.
She knew he had no other option.
SCENE 13
The doctor had trouble recognizing the patient that was brought into his office, a frail and trembling boy, strapped down in a wheelchair. His eyes were dull and lay deep sunken in a face that gleamed with grease and sweat. His hands were relentlessly twining the fabric of his trousers together in his lap. The pitiful appearance of this miserable being gave the doctor merely a glimpse of his total torment.
Giles slipped down in front of him. He rested his hands on both arms of the chair and gently spoke the patient's name.
"William? Can you hear me?"
He nodded, slowly.
"Were you looking for me, William? Did you want to speak to the Watcher?"
He nodded again but more eagerly this time, and for a moment, the deadness in his eyes ebbed away and was replaced by a spark of hopefulness.
"Giles?" He muttered. "Watcher?"
"Yes, I suppose that's me."
"Giles!" He was getting more lucid now. "It's you! It's really you!" He swallowed, and his eyes darted up to the woman who had brought him here. "He's the Watcher, right?" He asked her almost timidly. "I'm not away again. I'm not crazy?"
Dr Walsh smiled at him. "Yes, I told you I would let you see the Watcher. It's really him. Don't you worry."
"Right." He sighed in great relief and nodded. "William is a good boy. A good boy." He looked up at her and said hopefully; "I'm a good boy?"
"Yes you are. Now ask the watcher what you want to know, and he will tell you. He will tell you the truth."
He stared at her for a while with obvious anxiety. Then he flicked his worried eyes back at the doctor, while chewing on his lower lip.
"Come on, don't waste the good doctor's time! Go ask him!"
He scraped his teeth over his tongue and shyly he took his gaze to the ground. "Buffy." He fearfully muttered. "Giles, can you tell me where she is? Where I can find her? I've tried. Tried to find her. I looked everywhere. But this place is a maze. I got lost." He looked down at his damp hands, twisting white cotton between his fingers. "Please. Tell me? She hasn't come to see me while I was away. I don't know what happened to her."
Giles gave the unscrupulous Dr Walsh a long scornful look, his jaw stiffening. Why was it so, he thought, that in the end cruelty and hate had to triumph over kindness and care? And why was he himself allowing this cruelty to take place? The boy was completely miserable. He had been punished enough. But then he recalled the final moments of his beloved pupil, her blood that had tainted this boy's mouth and the madness that had blazed in these smouldering eyes, and the doctor stopped hesitating.
"Buffy is dead, William."
There was only blankness around the mouth. His pale blue eyes stared at him.
"Did you hear me William? Buffy is dead!"
He stirred, and slowly, he started to shake his head.
"For Christ's sake! Listen to me boy!" The doctor was seized by a sudden anger and grabbed the trembling young man by his arms.
"No no no no no no, can't be." He tilted his head and nudged his ear on his shoulder. He didn't want to hear this. "Not true. Not true!!"
"She's dead!" Giles said, and he shook him, his fingers digging into his arms till red marks appeared. "She could have been saved but she bled to death because of you! You crazy idiot!"
"Not true!" he yelled, his eyes large and pleading. "Please! Not true! Not true!"
"It is true!" Giles spat. "You killed her with your foolish delusions! Don't you remember?! Can't you remember what you have done to her?!"
The boy was frantically panting now, rocking himself in the wheelchair as much as his restrains allowed him to. His head twitched in rigid movements while he begged with wide-open eyes.
Giles watched how the young man slowly succumbed to his destructive words. How it ruined him. He felt no joy, although for a very wicked moment before, he had thought he might. Now the anger was gone, leaving behind the pain and the shame. It seemed that to him that there was never a possible escape from those two.
The doctor staggered back up, looking down at the patient who was now completely silent. The rusty joints of the chair squeaked while the boy kept rocking himself.
"She could have been saved." Giles muttered. "If only I could have saved her. I let you kill her. I killed her."
A small whimper came from the sorrowful patient. It was followed by a loud sob after which he was quickly reduced to wretched tears.
Giles looked up at Dr Walsh, his stance resentful and hostile.
"That went rather well." She said, unblinking." I believe we might have a break-through here, don't you think?"
There were only two words left in the world the good doctor could say to her. He pointed at the door, his finger trembling.
"GET. OUT!"
TBC
All right, I told you guys that this update would be the final one, but I've overdone myself once again and I've made this part much too elaborate. So I've decided to add one last chapter and a short epilogue to this story. It will be published as soon as I get the time to write it down (Yep, holidays are over, it's back to slave-labour again). Don't worry. I'll get him back home in Sunny D by the end.
Cheers Richard.
