Shadow Though it Be: An Excursus – Chapter 26
Buffy took charge.
"What are you waiting for?" she said sharply. "Find her!"
They all broke into sudden motion—Xander to hit the light switch and snuff the candles, the others toward the door. "Tara—Willow—you go out the front. See if you can spot her as she comes out of the alley." They spun to follow the command. "Xander, Anya, take the right. Giles—Giles, move. Come with me."
Dragging Giles with her, Buffy pelted out the back door, scenting. There was a drift of vampire dust over the back of Giles's car, and another at their feet. Spike was nowhere to be seen. "Probably too much to hope that they all killed one another," Buffy said to herself. "What?" Giles said. "Nothing," she told him. "This way."
Within seconds the vicinity of the Magic Box was completely vacated as they fanned out in their search for Elisabeth.
*
She was still running, her breath coming in sobs, her head throbbing nauseatingly. She put up a hand in a habitual gesture, to secure her glasses, only to find that she was not wearing any. She wondered at what point she had lost them. The third pair of glasses she'd lost in a fortnight, she thought manically, and had to stifle a barking laugh. She dodged in and out of alleyways, little caring how dark or light they were until she had gone some distance, and was too tired to move fast enough to thrust herself heedlessly into dark places. At one point she stopped, shuddering like a sick horse, and listened for the preternatural silence before going into a particularly dark slot between buildings, less than five feet wide.
Instead, she heard voices, crying, calling; seeking her out. Then footsteps, more than one set. She plunged into the darkness of the little alley and flattened herself against the wall, behind a set of trash cans. The footsteps came closer, and she held her breath.
They were voices she knew, the ones calling; female and male, they drew ever nearer to her, and soon she could distinguish their footsteps through the rushing gale in her head. The male voice cried out again, hoarse and half-broken: "Elisabeth!"
Rupert.
Her breath ended in her throat, so that she could not have cried out even if she wanted to. She made no move except to flatten herself even more tightly against the brick wall.
"Come on," said the female voice, a voice she also knew; and the footsteps echoed beyond her and out of earshot. Faintly, she heard others crying for her.
She wasn't sure what to do with herself: perhaps sink down onto the seeping concrete here and remain, always. She could not think more than a few seconds ahead, and it was taking an unpleasant amount of effort to maintain the connection between her consciousness and that name she had seen written on the floor in the magic shop. Without even making any decision about it, she turned and plodded further into the alley, toward a dim light and the faint sound of traffic.
She did not see a dark shape glut the alley, though she was looking that way. When she had nearly reached the mouth of the alley—she could see cars parked along a street—she found herself grasped roughly by the arms and shoved back against the wall. The back of her head connected with the brick with a dull, hollow sound that almost of itself was enough to reawaken the pain in her wounded temple. There was a small cry, half-swallowed, that she recognized for her own.
The face looming in hers had high, lean cheekbones, and she caught the sheen of platinum hair. "Spike," she uttered.
"Got it in one," Spike said.
"But you're not—supposed to be able to hurt a human," she said, her voice catching in her throat. "Unless—unless I'm not—"
Spike rolled his whole head as well as his eyes. "Or you could draw the other conclusion—that I'm not trying to hurt you. God, what is it about this town that robs people of their brains?"
"Pardon me for not being—" She couldn't remember the rest of the sentence she had been going to utter. "I've just recently died, you know."
"Is that so?" Spike appeared to be uninterested. "You look pretty alive to me."
She wondered what he was doing with her—did he plan to take her back to the others? "How'd you find me?" she asked dully, hearing her own words as if she had not spoken them.
"Well, in case you're not aware, your bloodscent is leaving a trail blocks long. You're lucky it's me found you."
"Oh?" she said. "How lucky?"
He grinned. "Well, it's all relative."
She caught her breath on a dry sob.
"The Scooby gang is looking for you, you know." He laid an ironic emphasis on the words Scooby gang, and Elisabeth looked up at him in plain appeal.
"I can't go back to them. I can't see them."
"They want to help you." Again the ironic emphasis, on help.
Elisabeth shook her head, but stopped when she found that it hurt to move it. "I don't—want them—"
Spike cocked his head. "—Crowding around, making cooing noises? Well, it's not as if I don't understand that." He peered closely at her, checking out her wound. "That's a pretty nasty knock you've got there. Probably needs stitches. I don't have a first aid kit at my place, but I could wipe you up a bit at any rate."
Elisabeth squinted at him. Spike, offering her help. She wondered what the appeal was.
As if reading her thoughts, he met her eye and grinned. "Be fun to let them wander all over town wondering where you are for a while. Come on. It's not far."
He let go of her, but her knees buckled and he had to grab hold of her arms again. "Steady on," he said. "This way."
He led her, half holding her up, out of the alley mouth into a street Elisabeth did not recognize, and they continued unremarked through the moonless night.
*
"Not far, you said," Elisabeth muttered as she stumbled along in Spike's grasp down yet another block.
"Well, nowhere's very far in Sunnydale. Unless of course you're mortally wounded." Spike bared his teeth in the night air. "How'd you like me to quote you some of the Agamemnon?"
"I wouldn't," Elisabeth said. "You fancy yourself a Cassandra?"
"Actually, I was thinking of Agamemnon's death scream, but now you mention it—yeah."
"No," she repeated. "Don't quote me any."
Spike sucked in a little grin. "Thought you liked literature."
That was before I was trapped in it, Elisabeth would have said, except she needed that effort for holding herself upright.
They crossed a street and entered a small cemetery—not the Rosedale one, Elisabeth noted, but another—she seemed to recall someone saying there was a disproportionate number of them in this town, or was that a fanfic she had read? It didn't matter.
She stumbled, and almost fell; Spike's hands lifted her effortlessly and set her properly on her feet—a vampire's hands, unwarm, unliving, yet deceptively human—and Spike had always been oddly human for a vampire.
"Rupert...." she heard herself mumble.
Spike snorted. "Bet he's in a right state. Serve him right. He never did pay me the other ten. Well, here we are, crypt sweet crypt."
Spike helped her down the steps into his abode, straight down into a darkness that made Elisabeth whimper despite herself. "Don't worry, love, I'll get you a light," came Spike's disembodied voice, unerring in its interpretation of her fright. His hands guided her in one direction, now in another; one hand left her, and a match struck and lit up Spike's pale face and paler hair. He used the match to light as many candles in a candelabrum as he could before the flame crept too close to his fingers and he dropped it with a mild oath. Then he took another match, lit it from one of the candle flames, and used it to light the remaining candles, apparently forgetting that Elisabeth was sinking in his grip. He noticed with a start when she threatened to unbalance him, and he dropped the match, leaving the last candle unlit. "Right," he said, stamping on the glowing match, "better get you someplace to sit."
He seated her on a stone bench against a pillar. She watched dully as he moved about the crypt, humming, pouring water in a basin and finding a clean cloth to dip it in. Then he came close with the basin, squatted before her, and lifted the wet cloth to her temple gingerly. "This might hurt," he said.
She made no response except to quirk a weary eyebrow.
Spike dabbed patiently at the left side of her face; it did hurt, but she did not change expression as she stared blurrily at the sheen of his black leather jacket in the candlelight. The cool dry air of the crypt touched her face where he had wet it with the cloth.
Spike sat back on his heels. "It's still bleeding fresh," he said. "That knock really opened your head up good." She could feel a fresh tickle above her ear, confirming what he said. Spike wiped at the tickle with his thumb and brought away a rich smear that even in the candlelight was clearly bright—fresh, as he had said.
He stood up, the rag in one hand, his eyes on the other hand, looking at the blood. As she raised her eyes to him she caught him giving her a furtive glance.
"It's not like you can put it back in me," she said.
His face cleared a little. "True," he said; but he still was looking askance at her face. Seeing she meant what she said, he popped the thumb into his mouth and sucked it delicately clean. It was probably a mistake, she thought as she saw the fire come into his eyes; but as seconds passed he evinced no stronger reaction than that, merely rolled the blood around on his tongue and swallowed thoughtfully.
At last he gave his verdict. "You need more iron in your diet."
"Tell me a new one," Elisabeth said.
Spike gave her a catlike look that was not quite a smile, in which she thought perhaps she could discern a faint respect; but that, she decided, could be merely her imagination.
He got a fresh basin of water and a new rag. "All the same," he said, as if they had been discussing it, "we probably ought to put a stop to it." He wet the rag, wrung it out, and made her hold it tightly to her temple over the wound. "And I'm thinking," he said, looking up at her at last from his crouch at her feet, "it won't happen here."
She blinked at him. "You mean...."
"I mean you need stitches. And I'm no doctor, but you look fairly well concussed to me."
As if to underline his words, a qualm of nausea began to stir and turn over in Elisabeth's insides, and her head gave a galactic throb.
"I don't want to move," Elisabeth said, through the fresh miasma in her head.
"Well, either you'll have to move, or someone'll have to do the moving for you. And there's plenty of people to volunteer for that. Isn't that right, Buffy?"
Spike had not moved his eyes from Elisabeth's face, but at his words she jumped and looked to her right. Sure enough, Buffy was standing there silently, just outside the pool of light cast by the candelabrum.
Now she moved into the light and crossed the floor to stand before Elisabeth. Spike rose, his eyes now fixed on the Slayer at his side. Buffy ignored him.
Elisabeth had let the hand holding the rag fall to her lap, watching them both; now she looked up at Buffy, searching her face wide-eyed for judgment. But there was no judgment in the Slayer's face.
Buffy bent and reached gently to touch the side of Elisabeth's head. "This needs a doctor," she said quietly.
Spike jumped in: "I was just telling her that."
"Shut up, Spike," Buffy said, not taking her eyes from Elisabeth's face.
Silently Spike's feathers went up: his mouth worked, ready to spit out the retort that never came.
"...a small emergency center down the street a few blocks from here," Buffy was saying. "If you feel you can walk it...."
Elisabeth was looking at Spike: he was staring at Buffy as if trying to bore a hole in the side of her head with his eyes, and in his face was an expression of avidity barely masked by his show of fury. Buffy ignored him steadily, her gaze on Elisabeth.
With an effort Elisabeth brought her eyes back to Buffy's face. "I'll walk it," she heard herself say.
"Okay," Buffy said, and reached out hands to help her up. Elisabeth found that, though she was still unsteady on her feet, she could walk with a little aid. Carefully they made their way through the shadows to the crypt steps.
Spike called savagely after them, "You're welcome!"
Elisabeth turned around, "thank you" on her lips, but Spike had eyes only for the unresponsive back of the Slayer. She turned around again and let Buffy lead her out of the crypt into the quiet night.
"How'd you know where to find me?" she said as they headed toward the cemetery gate.
Buffy shrugged. "I figured if Spike wasn't dusted, he'd find you first; and if he found you, he'd probably take you home with him. He has this thing for damsels in distress."
"To save or to eat?" Elisabeth asked, in the ghost of her old dryness.
Buffy
wrinkled her nose. "You know, I think
it's all the same thing to him."
Elisabeth grunted. "You're probably right."
After a few steps Buffy asked her, hesitating: "So, why'd you go with him?"
Elisabeth answered without thinking. "Because he's dead."
There was a long silence, in which they crossed the threshold of the cemetery and began to limp their way up the street, one of Elisabeth's arms over Buffy's shoulders. The Slayer's hands, strong, small, and warm, held her up—one under her ribs, the other bracing the wrist that was slung across Buffy's shoulder.
Tentatively, Buffy broke the silence. "I died once. I guess you know."
Elisabeth nodded. The nausea wasn't getting any dimmer; and she didn't want to encourage Buffy in her apparent attempt to draw a connection, so she drew in the corners of her mouth tightly, trying to think of some way to head it off.
But she found she didn't need to, for Buffy went on: "But it wasn't any big, really. I kind of wasn't there for a minute, and then there was Xander, and I remembered everything that happened. It all...fit together, and I didn't really have to think about that part of it. The dying part, I mean. It was more—what was done to me—that freaked me out."
"Yeah," Elisabeth said faintly.
There was another silence, and Elisabeth spoke again. "You walked toward it."
"Yeah," Buffy said, her voice both mild and grim.
Elisabeth's stomach was beginning to contort and jerk within her. She couldn't think properly anymore. "You saw what happened?"
"Yeah," Buffy said, "I saw." They plodded a few more steps and she added, "You chose it."
"I expected it," Elisabeth said. "So what am I doing here?" She hadn't meant for her voice to go so raw on those last words, but there was no taking them back now.
Buffy said nothing. Elisabeth's stomach jerked more insistently.
"I cannot tell you," Buffy said at last. "And I can't begin to imagine—"
Elisabeth stopped abruptly, and Buffy's hands fell away as she turned to face her.
"What is it?" Buffy said.
"All I had to do—was let go—" Elisabeth wasn't really talking to Buffy anymore, but the younger woman still stared at her as if trying to puzzle out her meaning.
"You should keep walking," Buffy said, reaching for her arm again. "Come on."
But instead of turning to walk, Elisabeth spun shakily and began to heave into the grass. So much, she thought briefly, for the Irish coffee....
For a long moment she crouched suspended in a single act of consciousness, retching into the grass, the Slayer's hands holding her by the shoulders, the only thing keeping her from toppling forward onto her face. The visceral twist and clamp of vomiting relented slowly, and she took small inching breaths and swallowed.
When she was able to straighten a little, Buffy said, "It's not far now. You'd better keep walking while you can."
"It's coming back," she gasped.
"Then best keep moving."
Shaking, Elisabeth acquiesced and turned to move, one step at a time, toward the fabled emergency room. Buffy was muttering: "...should have brought Giles and his car. Stupid, parading her around town smelling of blood: stupid....new upholstery be damned...much easier to argue with him when he had the Brave Little Toaster...." But Elisabeth suspected that even Buffy wasn't listening to herself.
"This is it," Buffy said aloud at last, and Elisabeth turned to look up blearily at the small, unprepossessing building, from which bright light was shining out of the glass doors. "Come on."
They mounted some stairs; entered the glass doors; and Buffy steered her toward the admittance booths of Emergency.
It was Buffy who had to explain to the languid woman on the other side of the glass that Elisabeth had been hurt in a—bicycle accident—and was concussed and bleeding and needing immediate attention. Elisabeth sat, her eyesight blurring uncontrollably, and barely managed to spell her name for the woman. No, she didn't have health insurance. No doctor, no address. No (and here tears rose in her eyes), she had no next of kin to notify.
"She has me," Buffy said quickly, before the woman could react. "I'm a cousin."
"And she has us," said another voice.
They all turned. Behind them stood Rupert, with Xander and Tara behind him.
"I gambled on where you'd end up," Rupert said to Buffy. He came forward with something in his hand, and laid it on the booth ledge. It was Elisabeth's wallet. "She needs to be seen immediately," he told the receptionist. "I'll take care of the paperwork."
Five minutes later Elisabeth was walking unsteadily toward the back, on the arm of a nurse.
Another five minutes, and they learned to ask questions not of her, but of Xander and Tara, who had come back with her.
An hour later found her reclining uncomfortably on a gurney, her shoes smudging and wrinkling the paper at its foot, while a young resident infiltrated her temple with local and began to stitch her up. She had been duly diagnosed with a concussion after having a series of strange faces loom in her vision with various medical implements, and it had been decided that she would be kept for observation for a few hours, and not allowed to sleep for a few more.
With her vision bracketed by the patient face and hands of the resident, Elisabeth could only hear the snatches of murmured conversation that went on behind her, just within earshot:
"She needs quiet."
"Is it as bad as—?"
"No, not so bad."
"Do you think she's—?" Xander's voice, persistent.
"She can be whole, I think."
Then: "We're not going to be able to send her back, are we."
Later, Buffy's voice: "Giles, I think I'm going to go home. Are you going to be okay?"
There was no voiced response, and Buffy said, "Are you sure? Because I can—"
"No." His voice scraped to life. "Go home."
"…Okay."
A few murmurs, and then Elisabeth didn't hear Buffy's voice anymore.
The stitches were finished, cleaned, and covered with a bandage; Elisabeth put up a tentative hand to feel the gauze—it felt thick and large, as if her head was twice its usual size. And then she was left alone, with no urge to move except occasionally to flip the finger that wore the pulse-ox clip, and to cut her blurred vision around the sterile room.
Gradually her consciousness cleared enough that she became aware of another presence in the room: she cut her eyes to her left side, the side with the bandage, but could see only the faintest outline of someone's knee, seated (as she supposed) in a chair. She was too tired to move her head, and anyway she knew who it was. She let go of the effort to think and let the bleak impressions of the room drift ad libitum through what remained of her mind.
Time passed without any marks except for the various hums of the fluorescent lighting, the monitors, and the faint electrical efficiency that pervades a hospital. Elisabeth's head began to hurt her very much.
He shifted in his chair, cleared his throat gently. She waited, but he did not speak.
She decided to speak the scrap of thought that had come to her, but made no effort in her mind to narrate herself a meaning from it; she was so tired of sewing rags together over darkness.
"You ever keep African violets?" she asked him, not using his name or even thinking it.
He cleared his throat again. "No."
"I had a coworker once who did," she said, swallowing to renew her cracked voice. "She had such beautiful violets, all in a row in her windowsill, all different kinds of purple. She told me that you can grow a violet—I guess you can grow a lot of plants—just by cutting off a leaf. She gave me some of her trimmings. Told me to put them in a glass of water and the leaves would grow roots all by themselves, and then I could pot them and have violets, too."
He cleared his throat a third time. "So then," he said softly, "did you have violets of your own?"
She was silent a moment before replying. "No," she said at length. "I forgot to water them. They dried up and died."
He made no answer; and presently she made the effort to turn over on the gurney and look at him. He was sitting with his glasses held in both hands over his knees; and the tears were standing in his eyes.
Slowly Elisabeth turned back over and stared, dry-eyed, at the edge of the monitor.
After a while she said, "Is it time to go home yet?"
He drew an audible breath. "Nearly."
"Okay," she said.
*
Chapter 27