Chapter 4: Visitations
"Hey Buffy," Dawn said as she walked into the room.
One of those paper-y hospital blankets was pulled up to Buffy's chest, but Dawn could see that the nurses had put her in an equally paper-y hospital gown. They had forgotten to take her hair down though. Dawn slowly reached out to Buffy's head. Her hand moved gently along the side of her sister's head, stroking the blond hair. Dawn sniffled. She felt like she was going to cry again, but she wasn't sure she had any tears left, which was just as well. She was really getting tired of bawling her eyes out. Taking a deep breath, she lifted Buffy's head with her right hand, being as gentle as she could, while her left hand snaked under to pull out the hair clip. When her task was done, she lowered Buffy's head back to the pillow. Her eyelids didn't even flicker. Her short hair fanned out slightly around her head. Dawn sniffled again. Still clasping the hair clip tightly in her left hand, she pulled a chair up to Buffy's bedside, and sat down slowly.
"Hi. It's me, Dawn," she began. "This feels pretty weird, but I heard it's good to talk to people who are in a...a coma." As she spoke, her voice gained strength. She could do this. She could be strong. She could live. For Buffy. Dawn closed her eyes against the pain as she flashed back to that night nearly a year ago. The hardest thing in this world is to live in it. Be brave. Live. For me.
"I just really want to say thanks. For pretty much everything." The memories of those last few days refused to leave her alone. "And I'm getting a major sense of dejུ vu, only we're not on a bus, and you're, well, not saying much of anything. Anyway, thanks for everything. You came back, and you didn't want to, but who would want to leave heaven? I can't really blame you for that, although I guess I did for a while. And I'm sorry. You were going through some pretty awful stuff, what with coming back from the dead, and working at the Doublemeat Palace, and Spike, and pretty much all the crappy stuff that's been happening this year. But then life was starting to get good again, for both of us. At least, I think it was for both of us." A hint of worry crept into Dawn's voice, but she didn't let it stop her monologue. "If it wasn't, well, you should get an Oscar. Or maybe an Emmy. I think we'd work better as a TV show than a movie, don't you? It could be called 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' or something like that. I think it would be a great show. All about life on the Hellmouth." Dawn glanced at the clock.
"I don't have much time left. The hospital staff is gonna kick us out soon, and we each wanted a chance to talk to you alone. So I just want you to know that I'll be brave." The tears were threatening again. "I'll try to be strong without you. We survived for a whole summer before. But...that was...hell. So please, come back to me. Come back to us. I don't know if you can hear me," Dawn said, crying now, "but if you can, remember this. I love you. You're the best sister anyone could hope for. And we'll take care of each other without you, but we'll miss you so much. Please...come back."
Dawn stood up now, and placed the hair clip on the small table beside the bed. "This is yours. I'm gonna go give Willow a turn now." With that, she walked quietly out of the room, drying her tears with the back of her hand.
---
Willow sat down in the chair Dawn had vacated. She looked sadly at the face of her best friend. She looked like she was sleeping, like it was just an ordinary night. But this sleep was deeper than any other. Well now that wasn't true. Death was pretty much the deepest sleep there was, and Buffy had died twice. Willow took a deep breath. She didn't have much time tonight, so she wanted to say what she had to say.
"Hi Buffy. It's Willow. I'm not really sure how to start. I'm not used to these one-sided conversations." Willow fell silent for a moment. She felt the need for proximity, so she scooted her chair a little closer, so that her knees were brushing the bed. Buffy's spirit seemed to be so far away, and she wanted so much to shorten that distance. With great effort, she avoided throwing herself on top of her friend's still form. The only thing that was holding her back was the fear of inadvertently hurting Buffy.
"I hope...I hope it didn't hurt much. There was just so much blood..." Willow was lost in her memories for a few seconds, but she quickly returned to her friend. "I really need to apologize. For bringing you back, but for more than that. For getting addicted to magic. Basically for doing my part to make this year suck as much as it did. 'Cause we all know it sucked worse than a vampire. Get it? Sucked? Sorry about the bad joke. It's the stress. You know me. God, how long's it been now? Five years? No, six. Well, almost." Willow looked down at her hands, fidgeting restlessly in her lap. "That's just one of the reasons you've got to wake up, you know? Make it an even six." Her voice was thick with emotion. "But you know, we'll be okay if you don't. Well that's a lie. We could never be okay without you. But we'll make it. We'll do our best to keep the Hellmouth in check. We'll take care of each other. Tara and I will look after Dawnie. We know you'd want us to.
"So I guess what I'm trying to say is not to come back because you're worried about us and you feel like you have to protect us. Come back because we love you. You've been my best friend for almost six years. When we're old and wrinkly and forgetting to take our pills, you'll still be my best friend. Even if you're not there. Even if it's just me forgetting to take my pills. You'll be my best friend. No one could ever take your place. And I'm not talking Slayer place. I mean Buffy place." Willow took Buffy's left hand in both of hers, and squeezed it gently but firmly. Then she turned and left the room.
---
"Hey Buff," Xander said, pretending it was just a regular night, and he was saying hi to his friend like everything was normal. Or as normal as things got for them.
"This is most definitely not normal," he said out loud as he sat down in the chair beside her bed. "Here I am, thinking out loud. I wonder if you can hear me. I'd like to think you can, 'cause I really want you to hear what I've got to say.
"I'm sorry I freaked about the whole Spike thing. I'm still freaked about it, but I'm not angry. God, how did we get here? These past few weeks...I thought I'd hit bottom, but it hurt. That you didn't trust me enough to tell me about Spike. So I was angry. Then I thought about what you said before, at my apartment. About how hard it is to just be here. And I thought, well, we've all done things we're not proud of, and maybe you would've told me about Spike if I hadn't given you so many reasons to think I'd be an ass about it." Xander looked down at his hands which were now clasping Buffy's limp hand.
"I love you so much. I can't imagine life without you and Will, and now I'm terrified that I'm gonna have to find out." He looked up at her face. He swore he saw her eyes moving beneath her eyelids, but he had no clue whether or not that was good or bad. Maybe it didn't mean anything. She was lying so still. The rapid eye movement and the slight rise and fall of her bandaged chest were the only things that kept him convinced she was still alive. "You gotta stop with this dying thing, Buff. It was funny once, maybe twice. Here I am, trying to be funny." Bitterness tinged his voice. "But this is so very not funny.
"I love you, and not in a romantic way; I'm over that. You and Willow are my best friends. You have to wake up. You don't actually have a choice here. If you don't wake up...that would be like giving up, and we both know you hate that. So come on and open your eyes. I bet everyone's saying this, but please...come back."
He put her hand back on the bed and gave it a soft pat. He stood up, but paused before leaving. He stroked her forehead affectionately, then left without a backward glance.
---
Tara walked into the room and sat down wordlessly. She stared at the woman on the bed. Tara didn't think of her as Buffy. Buffy wasn't there. But Tara thought she might be able to find her.
"I'm trying to be strong for them," she said. "For all of them." Even though the other woman wasn't really there, Tara felt the need to talk to her. Perhaps it was simply that she felt the need to tell someone, and it was easier to tell someone who wasn't listening than someone who would listen and remember. "But it's hard. I haven't known you–Buffy–as long as Willow or Xander or Dawn. Or even Anya and Spike. But I think I really came to know you over these past few weeks. You opened up to me, and I know you only did it because I was there, but you did it all the same. You trusted me with your secret. I won't judge you, and I won't tell them. But that's just what I need to talk to you about.
"I want to tell them, but I don't know if you'd want me to. And there's something else. Xander...he wants me to use magic on you. I said no. Willow...she stood up for me. Of course she did," Tara said with a proud smile. "It just goes to show how much she's grown this year. She's made mistakes, but she learned from them. I think maybe you did too. I guess we all did. But there's one lesson that Xander has not learned. What he wants me to do is wrong. I could accidentally kill you, or worse. I could make you really wrong, like you were afraid you were. And even if you almost wanted it then, I believe that you don't want it now. And I believe you understand that there's a line. There's a line between right and wrong that can't be crossed. Yes, there is lots of gray area, but at some point it goes black.
"Slayers don't kill humans. That's your line. Mine is not to mess with the natural order of things. That includes death, and healing. When Willow brought you back from the dead, she crossed a line, and you suffered for it. Now that you're finally learning to live again, I'm not going to risk making you suffer again. But Xander was right about something. I think there is something I can do. I'm not sure yet; I need to do some research, but I promise that I will be back."
