Part 4
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Sunny Hills Reality
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~I've visited with Xander twice since the first night. Once I managed to pull him back here, and once I didn't. The first time I went back, he wasn't here – he was glassy eyed and moaning about Dawn and Willow. He mentioned the shop, too – I assume he meant the Magic Box. At one point, he got angry, and yelled "Why don't you people stop fussing over me? I'm fine!" Then he got quiet. I guess either they left him alone, or he was once again back in Sunnydale fully.
The second time, he was cognizant and totally here with me for a while. He assured me he'd been taking good care of Dawn, like a big brother should, although he blushed slightly when he said that. I didn't push him – didn't want to lose him so soon by asking grating and suspicious questions. Besides, if I was stupid enough to trust Spike with Dawn after he'd tried to rape me, surely I would be more stupid not to trust Xan with her. He's always been the most trustworthy man I've ever known besides Giles.
We tried to figure out what was causing his fading in and out of the two realities, but so far, no clue. No demons, not even any enemies as of now. My sacrifice actually seems to have shut down the unrelenting evil that streamed to the Hellmouth when it was open. He says Kennedy is almost bored. And that a bored Kennedy is even more annoying than an irritated one. I find that hard to believe.
He got upset when I suggested maybe Willow had done one of her wonky spells on him. He says Willow gave up magic entirely when I died, and that she's working full-time at some computer place. She even lost her keys last week, and he had to find them. Magic-y Willow would have done a locator spell in a heartbeat, he insisted. And I know he's right.
I lost him again soon after that. It's so frustrating, not being there to look at the evidence and find out what's causing this. It's even worse not to be able to talk for long with the one witness I have on that end without him fading away in the middle of a sentence. I want so desperately to fix this for him.
On the home front here, Dr. Coyle has arranged it so Nat is Alex's primary nurse whenever she's on duty. She was the one who called me when he came around this last time. We even have beepers.
She's been with me every time I've been in there, and I think she might be crushing on Xander as well as Alex Lewis. Hee. But she's a lot of help – even if it's just as someone I can talk to about it all. The doctors (both Coyle and Shah) have agreed I don't have to share with them anything Alex says to me, unless I think he's in danger somehow. I was glad I got them to agree to that, 'cos there's no way they'd understand. Nat is still freaking over it, although in a much more controlled manner nowadays.
I've dropped all my classwork except English Lit. I already told Dr. Matt that I'm going to take some time off after I finish that, so I can help Alex. Apparently, we're some sort of legend around here – everyone knows that I'm doing this, just not any real details. All the doctors have made a point of patting me on the back and thanking me whenever they see me in the halls. If only they knew how ulterior my motives are.
Six weeks, one day to go.
Aw, shit, it just occurred to me – what if I have to leave before I fix this?~
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"Dr. Coyle?"
"Hello, Buffy – come right on in. How's our patient doing today?"
"He was coherent for a while earlier – it was nice. But that's not why I'm here. I have a question for you."
"Shoot." The doctor templed his fingers and looked serious.
"What if I'm released before Xa – Alex gets better?" She looked up at the man anxiously – had he caught her near slip-up?
"You go home, of course."
"But I can't leave him alone!" Buffy was distraught – she was now under a time limit, too.
Dr. Coyle's face cracked into a wide grin, then he chuckled loudly. "You've become quite fond of the young man already, it seems. Buffy, just because you might go home doesn't mean we won't let you back in. You can come see him every day, if you want. You can even keep the beeper, and Miss Carlyle can page you when he comes to. He actually talked to me the other night, for the first time since he was brought here, instead of just moaning and staring."
Now Buffy was indignant. "What? And you didn't call me?"
The doctor's amused grin remained firmly in place. "I did think I was still his primary physician?" He chuckled again at her chagrinned expression. "Still, you're making progress with him that I was not before you became involved. There's no way I want that to stop merely because your parents want their daughter home. How selfish of them. Perhaps I can talk Menah into…"
"Let's not get hasty here, doc," Buffy backpedaled. "As long as you'll let me see him, I'm good."
"Yes, my dear, you're very good. And why do I get the feeling that even if I didn't plan to let you see him, which I do, trying to stop you would be futile?"
"You must have known me in another life," Buffy said grimly.
~**~
Sunnydale Reality
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It was useless. He was completely finished. Done. Kaput.
He'd exhausted everything he could do on the Magic Box without starting the custom work, either to reopen the shop or for a new tenant.
Damn. Now Xander Harris officially had nothing to do.
Well, except try to figure out why his consciousness seemed to be split between two realities.
He'd talked to Dawn about it; explained that he thought it was like when Buffy got demon-poked and was hallucinating about another world where she was in an institution.
In fact, he was the one in the institution, and Buffy was there, talking to him sometimes when he found himself there, although sometimes there was this really nice doctor, and once a pretty little black girl he didn't know, but who seemed to know him. He thought she might be a nurse. She'd even called Buffy for him. It was kinda hazy, but he knew he'd spent time talking to Buffy.
He hadn't meant to make Dawn cry.
So he'd let it go. He wasn't sure why it upset her so much, but he wasn't sure about a lot of things lately. Like where he was each time he woke up, and why sometimes he felt as if he'd just woke up when in fact he'd been standing, say in the living room, before, and still was, then.
He remembered how Buffy had zoned out for extended periods when she was reality hopping, and he assumed, from the looks he got the few times it happened when someone else was around, that he'd done the same. But there was a reason, and had been a cure, for what affected Buffy. There wasn't the same, so far as he knew, for him.
He hadn't said anything, but he was pretty sure his body was shutting down. He'd been hiding it since before he had that first vision, or dream or hallucination a few weeks ago. He wasn't exactly sure how long – time was moving oddly for him lately.
He couldn't really eat much without getting nauseous. Some days he vomited after every meal. Others he managed to keep small amounts down. Lately there'd been bloody diarrhea – such fun. He knew he was going to have to share at least that one with the doctor on his next visit.
His skin felt tight and – prickly. Like it belonged on someone two sizes smaller than Xander. Not that Xander wasn't already at least two sizes smaller than he'd been right before his aborted wedding to Anya – he was that and more. He was so glad they'd gotten used to seeing him in baggy clothes, because even his tightest fitting stuff from before was hanging on him now. Dawn knew, of course. She'd seen him in his boxers – she could count every highly visible rib.
But she was his accomplice in whatever this was. She gave him the pain meds when he knew she knew it was only so he didn't have to feel the emptiness. She knew he'd been running a fever on and off for days now, and she hadn't told Willow. Willow had figured it out, anyway, having felt his heated body when she hugged him goodnight one evening, but she just thought it was a touch of the flu. Dawn knew where it was his mind wandered off to when he was gone, even if she didn't want to hear about it. She kept his guilty secrets, and even seemed to feel as guilty herself, for him.
Suddenly, the world shifted dramatically, and he was…
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Sunny Hills Reality
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"Okay, Doc, we understand each other, so…"
Dr. Coyle laughed again. "I would never be presumptuous enough to assume I understood a young woman in this day and age." Buffy glared at him. "But do go on," he finished mildly.
Still frowning, she continued. "Alex doesn't have any family, at least, not that seem to care. His folks are dead. His coaches really do care about him, but is it a fatherly concern, or the showman for his prize bull? Somebody needs to know the sitch. Tell me what you'd tell his family, if they were still alive. I'm the closest thing he's got, now."
The older man had that odd look on his face he got sometimes. Like he didn't know exactly what he'd just heard, but it had to be funny, right? He cleared his throat, and began. "The 'sitch,'" he eyed Buffy oddly and shook his head, "is that Alex has spent so long trying so hard to live up to the public image of himself that he finally, to use the technical term, cracked." Buffy rolled her eyes, but didn't interrupt. "Whereas in your case, you imagined yourself to be a superbeing – a 'Slayer' – in order to step outside what you felt was a meaningless existence, Alex has become – if I may use another technical term – a 'nebbish.' A nobody. A weak creature in a world of super-powered beings. His friends are a mighty witch, a mystical girl who can open portals to other worlds, and strangely enough, a 'Slayer.'"
Buffy looked up, panic in her eyes. Dr. Coyle was no longer laughing. Her heart started pounding. "Yes, I do know. Whatever it was that you went through, it is exactly the same thing Alex is going through. I don't believe in shared hallucinations, but there's nothing I can believe in that explains what is going on." He slapped his palm down on the folder on his desk. "Menah gave me your file – I've read it all. You often mentioned a 'Xander' in your hallucinations – another nickname for Alexander. Is this our Mr. Lewis?"
Buffy nodded, looking at her lap. Her freedom was over. She'd be locked back up, put back in the grey shapeless clothes, and never let out again. And poor Xander would suffer the same fate. His hopes of Olympic glory as Alex Lewis would be dashed. The tears welled in her eyes. She'd failed, and both of them would suffer. Just like Sunnydale.
"Buffy," Dr. Coyle said softly. He didn't say anything more, and finally, after a few minutes, she lifted her head to look into his eyes. Eyes that held a gentle sympathy instead of the condemnation she was prepared for. "Whatever it was that happened, you overcame it. I think you can help Alex do the same. I said it from the first, and I still believe that. I won't tell anyone else, I promise." His gently sarcastic smile returned. "I'm not sure how I'm going to write it all up for his files, but I'll think of something. I did ace Creative Writing in college."
Buffy stared at him in wonder. No one, even in Sunnydale where it was real, had ever believed her without question when strange things happened. They either needed to be convinced, or they just denied it. She'd just been given permission, not orders, and not to save the world at the possible cost of her own life, but to save one of her best friends and give him a better life. She'd have official support. Darla had been wrong – this was heaven.
Dr. Coyle had come around her desk, worried he might have given her one shock too many. She was, after all, a girl who'd only recently come through psychological trauma of her own. The way she was sitting there with her jaw agape was starting to make him nervous.
His concern turned to surprise when she jumped from her chair and threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck and squeezing. "You won't regret this. I'll tell you everything, and I promise I'll get him back. For both of us."
He patted her back as she sobbed against his chest, her tears of relief making a wet spot on his white lab coat. "I know you will, Buffy. I know you will."
~**~
"Who are you?"
Natalie jumped. She'd been watering the plants in Alex's room, having checked his vitals and refilled his water pitcher already. Lately she seemed to spend a majority of each work day just taking care of him, with the encouragement of most of the rest of the staff. She wasn't sure if it was because of his celebrity status or Buffy's unique experiment in peer-to-peer patient counseling, but she sure didn't mind. He was cute, and famous, and - she had to admit it, it was clear in his eyes whenever she was around – totally Buffy's.
"Nat – I'm Natalie." She turned and headed over to the bed.
"Can you undo me?" he asked hesitantly, holding up his leather-shackled wrists. Nat didn't see why not – he hadn't thrashed or been violent since the first time he saw Buffy. He was certainly no danger to anyone while awake.
"Sure." Carefully she unfastened the buckles, almost afraid to touch him, and not sure why she felt that way. "I have to call Buffy," she told him, more to make conversation than anything else, "I'm supposed to let her know when you're awake."
"So she's a doctor here?"
Okay, that shouldn't have amused her quite that much. But the young nurse just couldn't stop laughing. Finally after a few minutes, she started to catch her breath. "{Snort} Not quite. {hehehe} She's…just {wheeze} another patient. {hehehe} A really {cough} pushy one."
He had an adorable lopsided grin – almost stunning enough to make Nat stop laughing and just look at it for a while. He looked on the edge of a fit of giggles himself. "That's my Buff," he said proudly.
Natalie turned away quickly; sure the hurt was showing in her eyes. "His" Buff – he belonged to Buffy. She knew that. But – she glanced back over her shoulder to see the remains of the grin shining in his eyes – he was nice, from the little she'd seen of him. Buffy'd told her he'd been a great friend. Why couldn't he be her friend, too? She really had to stop husband shopping – particularly in an asylum. By the time she reached the phone, her grin matched Alex's prior one.
"Buffy," she sang into the phone, "He's Ba-a-ack." She heard him snickering behind her.
~**~
(He's Ba-a-ack)
Buffy hung up Dr. Coyle's telephone. Turning to the doctor, she snorted, "Xander's back, and I think he's infected Nat."
"With whatever's causing him to hop realities?" The usually unflappable doctor sounded vaguely panicked.
"No, with his smart-ass sense of humor. C'mon – we need to let the team know you're on board, I think." Buffy breezed out the door, while Irving Coyle wondered how he'd let this little slip of a patient take over what sometimes seemed like the entire institution. He was glad she was only interested in a single case, or she'd probably have done just that.
"Sir, yes sir," he muttered. She was clearly comfortable with being in charge.
They caught the end of a conversation between Xander and Natalie as they entered.
"…really thought she was a cavewoman?"
"She didn't think she was – she really was. The whole lack of personal pronouns thing – she called me "boy," for example – and…"
"I think that's quite enough, boy," Buffy interrupted.
Xander pouted. "I was going to try and impress her by telling her you thought I smelled nice."
"And suppose I tell her about the time every girl in Sunnydale was in love with you except the only one you wanted?"
"Yeah, they were, weren't they, Ratgirl." They both burst out laughing together.
Natalie, in the meantime, had caught sight of Dr. Coyle, and her dusky skin had paled to grey. "Uh, Buffy, uhm…" How could she get them to shut up and not spill their secret? He must have seen Buffy coming in the hall and followed her in. They were going to be in so much trouble… She started tugging on her friend's sleeve. "Dr. Coyle…" She couldn't finish the sentence, just pointing instead.
"Oh, yeah. Xander, this is Dr. Coyle. He understands about Sunnydale, and he knows you aren't the run-of-the-mill mental patient."
"Indeed – I'm an exceptional mental patient," Xander smirked. "Nuttier than a fruitcake."
"He knows?" Nat grumbled. "He knows!? I thought this was a real secret, not a one-secret-fits-all party!"
"I like her," Xander said softly to Buffy. "She's funny."
"Yes, Miss Carlyle. I really do like to know what's going on with my patients, unlike others in my profession," Dr. Coyle replied somewhat coolly. Then, seeing the nurse's stricken expression, he softened the harsh words with a friendly smile and a pat on her arm. Then he turned to Xander. "Mr. – Harris, is it? Or Lewis?"
Xander shrugged. "I don't know. I feel like I could answer to either one."
"Alexander, then."
The young man winced. "Alex, please. Or Xander. Just not the full name – it's always meant I'm in trouble, in either world."
"Alex." The doctor paused, gathering his thoughts. "This is still a bit surreal to me. None of the probing questions I learned in med school seem quite appropriate in this case." He thought a moment longer. "How much do you remember of your life here, as Alex Lewis?"
"Pretty much all of it, now. For the first week or so, it was hazy, and I kept getting it confused with Xander's life. Fortunately, there aren't a lot of people left in Sunnydale who know me well enough to catch me when I got confused there. Only Dawn spends any time with me at all, these days." He smiled sadly at Buffy, who took his hand comfortingly. "I think I'm pretty sick, there." He reached up and touched his left eye, wonder on his face. "I seem to be a lot better, in lots of ways, here."
~**~