Chapter 21 -- Reality

The three vampires had scattered once Buffy had sprinted out back.

Drusilla ran, a supernatural blur in lace, downstairs to Spike and they held hands as they left out the front door. She spun on the sidewalk, giggling, raising her arms to the sky, before getting into the de Soto.

Angel cursed, chased after them, but stopped on the front step to turn back inside, with one last look at Drusilla, to follow Lawson. He paid no mind to his doubts and self-recriminations, as his plan fell to complete horseshit around him, he needed to focus. Angel had made this mess and he should be the one to clean it up.

The GI ran down the stairs to the basement and across the room to the sewer entrance. Throwing aside the manhole cover, he jumped in. The cover skidded to a shrieking metallic halt against the wall, clanging on impact.

Angel cringed at the sound, sprinting through the basement, before he jumped in after Lawson. He tracked the other vampire for a half mile through winding sewers before he pulled back to go help Buffy. He had never felt so useless before. Every fast step felt like an eternity as he hoped that Buffy stopped Penn and tried not to think of the consequences if she hadn't.

000

Sheila had her arms around her daughter before she was even sure that it wasn't an Ambian flashback. She knelt down in the threshold, clutching her daughter close. "Ira!" Even as she cried tears of sweet relief, she cataloged the bruises that circled her daughter's neck. Sheila could feel that she had lost weight. "Willow is home."

"Don't wake up," Willow kept repeating in a raspy fading voice. "Please, don't wake up." She shivered, sobbing, and pressed her face into Sheila's shoulder.

"Its not a dream. You're home!" Sheila raised Willow's face and stared into her eyes. Her wet hair clung to her back and cheeks in wild clumps. Bruises purpled on her face, a bloody bandage hung loose on her neck, and her bottom lip was swollen. Blood dripped down her forehead from a cut near her hairline. She wore an lavender dress, thin and damp; its hem was ragged and mud spattered. Sheila looked down at Willow's feet, bare and coated in muck, and couldn't stop the sob that escaped her. She looked like she ran through all nine circles of hell to get home. Sheila lifted Willow to her feet then helped her into the house.

"Willow!" Ira said, running down the stairs, face puckering as he struggled with his emotions. "My daughter, my little girl, I was so scared." He stopped at the foot of the stairs and looked at her in wonder and shock before he hugged them both. Letting go, he said, "Give her some air."

Willow swayed when Sheila let go. "My head got hit on a wall. I'm kinda woozy."

Ira caught her before she fell, lifted her up and carried her up the stairs. He whispered to her, "You're safe now. You're home and you're safe and I'll make sure that you'll never be in danger again. I'm so sorry."

Sheila had never felt such relief before, but now the fear and worry of what Willow survived had deflated her joy. "We need to get her to the hospital."

"I know, Sheila, but she needs to get into dry clothes." He shot her a look, a mix of guilt, pain, and relief, over his glasses before he said in a broken voice, "We need to clean and bandage her feet at least."

Sheila snatched the cordless phone before following them up the stairs. She said something to the 911 operator, but her attention was on the pale face of her child. She went into Willow's bedroom, as she spoke to the operator, she told the woman that they would be going to the hospital and that they needed to send police officers to meet them there. They weren't going to wait. It was all she had done for weeks. Besides, everyone knew how long the waits for ambulances were in the town. A fact she hadn't ever really thought about it until now.

Sheila answered the operator's questions as she got some of the few clothes that remained. Most of them had been destroyed in the kidnapping. Sheila knew that she had yet to even begin calculating the damage done. She hung up and dropped the phone, with a clatter, near its charger.

Joining her family in the bathroom, she watched Ira set Willow on the toilet and then turn the tub facet on. She set the clothes by the sink and grabbed the first aid kit from the mirror cabinet, opened it, then placed it by Ira's knees.

Willow wept, quiet, her head bowed, tangled hair hiding her face. She shook and her mutterings were too low to hear. Goosebumps covered the pale arms that she wrapped around herself.

Sheila's throat tightened and her eyes grew hot as she struggled to keep herself together.

Carefully taking her foot, he cleaned mud off the scratches and scrapes with a washcloth.

Every injury revealed tugged at her heart. Sheila crossed herself, instinct from her days as a catholic school girl, without thought.

He lifted her foot, examining the bottom, before he had to look away, grimacing. Taking tweezers out of the first-aid kit, he pulled a shard of glass from her foot. He stared at the shard before looking up at Sheila.

She knew from the shake of his shoulders that he was close to sobs. She hadn't seen him cry since his father died. Her eyes felt hotter, her throat tighter, and she tried to remain strong for her family. Sheila put her hand on his shoulder. "Get the car around. Let me finish." She helped him up and embraced him. Kissing him on the cheek, she smiled through her tears at him.

Ira nodded. "I'll get a bag for those clothes too. Willow, we're going to go to the hospital soon." He left, looking back as if he was afraid she would disappear.

Willow nodded, pushing her hair back as she straightened, wrapping her arms around herself. She made eye contact. There was a bleak flatness to her expression that chilled Sheila to the bone. Her baby looked so bloody and broken as her mouth curled in disbelief or dismay.

Sheila knelt by the tub and checked the water temperature before she rinsed the wash cloth off. She washed the last of the dirt off of Willow's right foot and then moved to the left one. She dropped the cloth in the tub without rinsing the last of the muck off before getting out alcohol wipes to sanitize the cuts. She bandaged her daughter's feet, wanting to bow her head over them and cry, but only smoothed the tape down. Sheila understood then that she was capable of killing another human being, because if she could have found the son of a bitch who had done this to her daughter right then, she stopped that train of thought. It didn't help. That wasn't what her daughter needed right now. She focused on her daughter's thin hoarse voice.

"I thought I'd never get home." Willow picked up a small dolphin figurine she had since she was small and looked at it as if it was a long lost trinket from an ancient past. Her eyes were unfocused. "I was so lost. I tried so hard to be brave and I never cried in front of him. That's what he wanted. My surrender." She screwed her eyes shut, but tears still escaped to roll down her cheeks. "Tried to be strong."

Sheila cleaned up the cut on Willow's forehead and put a band-aid on it. "You are brave. You're the strongest person I know."

Willow set the dolphin in her lap before she buried her face in her hands. "I'm..." She lurched forward. The figurine fell and crashed to the ground, breaking in two.

"Willow, honey, are you going to be sick?" Sheila asked, feeling like she just might, as she caught her and stood up them up.

"No, just fuzzy around the edges like novelty dice. I'm sleepy, but I know if I go to sleep, I'll wake up next to him and I'll still be there." She shook her head. "I don't know if I should be relieved or wary."

"No, you won't. You'll be safe with your mom and dad. He can't hurt you anymore." Sheila rubbed her back, biting her lip, pausing to calm herself. A sour feeling of horror kept growing in her stomach. "Okay, we'll get you to the hospital now."

"I can't wear this anymore, Mom. I want to burn it all." Willow pulled back. "I want to wear my own clothes. "

Sheila nodded, she would have been the first to burn them if they didn't need them for evidence. "Do you need help?"

"No, but could you get me slippers?" Willow's face twisted up into a cringe or smile, as she looked away, leaning onto the edge of the counter with a shaking arm. "I can feel my feet again."

Sheila backed out of the bathroom, leaving the door open a crack as she rushed to get her own slippers, since Willow's cow slippers had been ripped apart, and a sweater since it was cold out. She waited for minutes that felt like hours when she heard a thump. Whipping the door open, she dropped her armful, and tears flowed anew from her eyes when she saw her daughter curled up by the tub.

"Its all a game of Risk." She said in a dull murmur. Willow had changed into her clothes, leaving the other ones in a pile in the tub. She leaned back against the wall, looking away, her neck and shoulders bare except for the thin shirt straps. The dress's high neckline had hid even more marks and scars than Sheila had thought. "Don't think about it," she chanted, nails digging into her arms, as she hunched over. "Don'tthinkdon'tthinkdon'tthink."

"Honey, let me help you." Sheila reached for her and pulled her to her feet. All the soothing words she should have known and said had disappeared. Her PhD never prepared her for this or the pain that she felt gazing at her tormented daughter. She bent to get the sweater and assisted Willow in putting it on.

Willow slid her feet into the slippers, clinging to her mother.

Ira came back in with a plastic bag and put the dirty clothes in it.

Sheila half carried her down the stairs. "Come on, dear, once we're in the car, we'll call Nana O'Shea. She's been worried sick and lighting candles for you."

"Buffy first," Willow wheezed.

"Okay, we'll call her first," Sheila said as she got the silent girl out of the door and locked it after Ira walked out. Sheila couldn't help her stream of meaningless babble that went past the questions stuck in her throat.

Ira shielded them from the rain, umbrella in one hand and evidence bag in the other, as he followed behind them.

Willow didn't respond as she got herself into the backseat.

After they got into the car, Sheila handed her Ira's cellphone from the cup holder.

She took it, silence deep enough to hear her type in the number and the other phone ring. "Buffy, I'm going to the hospital. Tell Xander. Bye." Her voice was monotone, scratchy, and devoid of any emotion.

Ira looked at Sheila and she knew he was thinking the same thing. They had never heard her finish a phone call so quickly.

"Ah, damn it," Ira said, hitting the wheel, the slap overly loud in the car. "I forgot the overnight bag."

"We can get it later, honey." Sheila said, looking at her pale daughter through the passenger side mirror.

Willow didn't break from her catatonic silence through the car ride, check in with the receptionist, or changing into the hospital gown, until she was taken to an examining table where a nurse waited for her to perform a rape test. Willow had asked Sheila to wait with Ira then went silent again. After she was wheeled out of the room in a chair and taken to a private room, the nurse told them that there was no sign of sexual assault and that she was still a virgin, but a dehydrated and anemic one.

None of them had anything to say after that. Sheila and Ira sat, holding hands, by Willow's bed. She leaned her head on his shoulder.

Once settled into the hospital bed and given sedatives, Willow fell asleep.

That was when the cops had arrived.

"Hello Mr and Mrs. Rosenberg, I'm detective Ramirez and this is my partner Saunders." The uniformed man said flashing his badge. "Could we step outside and ask you two some questions?"

Sheila nodded and kissed her daughter's forehead before walking out with them. Ira put his arm around his wife when they got into the hallway.

"Has she said anything about her captors?"

"Not really." Sheila shook her head. "I think she's still in shock from it all."

"Here is the clothes she came home with. Back home there is a rag that we washed her feet off with that might have soil samples you need." Ira said, picking up the plastic bag, from the floor. "I need to get her an overnight bag. You could follow me there and I can give it to you."

"That would ideal." The detective took a notepad and pen from his shirt pocket and jotted down notes. "Saunders could drive you there and back now, if you would like, before taking it all to the station to be analyzed."

Ira nodded, pulled his wife in for a hug and followed the cop down the hall.

"Any details that you noticed or anything she said that might help identify the kidnapper?" Detective Ramirez asked, his dark eyes were kind, but his tone was crisp and businesslike.

"Her neck was bit. All over." Sheila touched her own throat. She could see Willow's bruises in her mind. "The dress that she came home in was tailored." Sobs broke from her. "My little girl. What happened to her?"

Detective Ramirez wrote another note. "Maybe we should ask her," he said gently.

000

Willow lay back on the flat hospital pillows, pretending to be asleep, trying to regain her sense of composure so she could tell the lie the gang had came up with for the police. She knew that if she began to cry again that she wouldn't be able to stop for while. Looking at the pain in her mother's eyes only made it worse. Willow opened her eyes when her mom walked back in with a police officer.

"Hello, Willow, I'm Detective Ramirez with the Sunnydale PD and I need to ask you some questions about the man who kidnapped you." Under his bushy eyebrows, his expression was serious. He jotted down notes without seeming to look down at his small beat-up pad.

Willow nodded, reaching for the water glass on the bedside table and taking a drink to give her more time to remember.

"Can you describe him at all?"

"I was blindfolded and kept in a dim, locked room a lot. I didn't see him clearly." Willow saw the suspicion flare on the cop's face and decided to change the plan. "He was a white man with sandy hair. I know he wore glasses. I remember him taking them off before he..." Willow looked down, crying despite her attempts at serenity, wanting to go home. "Before he did this." She pulled down the neck of her hospital gown and tugged the fresh bandage off her neck. "It hurt." She pointed at the scabbing bite mark. "I slapped him once and I felt his face..." She trailed off. "There was something wrong with it." Looking into the detective's face, she knew that he understood what she was talking about. It was better was lie with the ugly truth. "He was a monster, sir."

"I see. I think that will be all for today." He nodded to them as he closed his notepad and put it and the pen in his shirt pocket. "Thank you both for your help."

"That's it?" her mom asked. "My daughter was kidnapped and assaulted for weeks." Her face was red, eyes flinty, and her hands were on her hips. Willow hadn't seen her mother show this kind of emotion before. The distant and absent-minded academic aura was gone and Sheila Rosenberg was in full on mama bear mode.

"Ma'am, we'll send the clothes to the lab and follow leads, but we don't have any more questions for either of you at this moment. I'm sorry. Thank you for your cooperation. Good bye." He turned to walk away.

Her mother followed him out. "You've seen this before, haven't you?"

Willow heard her mom argue with the cops through the open door about police responsibility and social justice. She looked out the window at the parking garage until her mom came back and closed the door.

"What are you hiding?" Her mom asked, crossing her arms, serious concern on her tired face. "What won't you say?"

"What do you want me to say?" Willow forced herself into her pokerface and kept eye contact. It wasn't like she actual hid anything. Her parents were always too busy to see what she was doing openly. She had come home many nights, walking through the front door with demon ooze on her or at at four in the morning, and no one had cared. She hadn't had a nanny since she was fifteen so who would have seen the stakes she whittled on the back porch when she was bored? Her parents had been gone for every other life or death situation she faced on the hellmouth and she was beginning to wish they had been absent for this one too.

"The truth!" Sheila Rosenberg said in her stern nurturer voice that she liked to pull out when she bothered to parent.

Willow laughed, bitter and brief, before she replied, "Now you care about my life."

"That's not fair." Her mom looked as if she had been slapped.

"Mom, you're smart. Why don't you figure out the big secret of this town? Did you ever even notice how many people go missing or are found dead here?" She shook her head. "Can't you just be happy I survived?"

Her mother gasped and started to speak, but was interrupted when her dad walked in with a backpack in his hand.

"I got your overnight bag, sweetie."

0000000

Willow was happy when the sedative they gave her to help her sleep finally kicked in. When she awoke, needing the bathroom, it was the middle of the night. Her mother was asleep next to her on the bed and her dad was in a chair, head back, mouth open, as he snored. Walking into the hallway, she stopped, instinct freezing her movements despite the dreamy blur of the sedatives in her system. Willow peered down the dark hall and saw nothing. Wary, she stepped back, heart pounding in her ears before going into the bathroom across the hall and down three doors to do her business fast. She washed her hands asking if it was the drugs that was making her so nervous. She hoped it was the drugs.

She stepped out of the bathroom and stopped herself in mid-gasp when a shadowy figure emerged out of the gloom yards down the hallway.

"Franz," she whispered before letting out a breath she didn't realize she was holding, smiling from an odd relief.

"Hello, I see you escaped." He returned the smile with far more warmth than when he was on the clock under Angelus' command. Franz wore a casual cream business suit jacket over blue button-up shirt without a tie and jeans. He looked like an almost hip thirty-something professional out on the town.

It made her want to laugh to see him outside his butler clothes and severe part. He didn't look silly at all, but it brought home the fact that she had escaped. She wasn't stuck in that room anymore. Willow didn't think she could have dreamed him wearing that outfit. In a bizarre way, she was glad to see him even though the sensible part of her brain told her that she shouldn't be. She should be more scared, she realized in a detached way, but if he wanted to kill her or torture her that he wouldn't have waited for her to wake up. Maybe I have Stockholm Syndrome, she thought as a dull numbness created by stress and drugs overtook her, it would explain a lot.

"I'm like a small, redheaded Houdini." She said, pretending that she wasn't in a hospital gown, with bruises and serious mental baggage. It was easy to pretend normalcy around Franz, even in the beginning, when she was asking what the rules were and thought that board game strategy could be applied to vampire society. He just seemed so civilized, but Willow knew that was only a veneer over his demon. She didn't think he'd hurt her though. Kill her, maybe, but not hurt her. That would have been a paradox to her before she became the unwilling Jane Goodall of the vampires.

"I'm glad to see it." His smile broadened, he reached into his suit jacket, and pulled out a business card. "I worried about you, but I can see that it was unfounded."

She took the card and grinned. "Oh, you big old worrywart."

"For certain people, yes, I'm afraid I am." He bowed. "If you require my services, call the number."

"I couldn't afford," she said as she studied at the elegant card. "It," she finished, looking up to see him gone. "Huh." She tapped the card against her palm. "Goodbye, Franz." Willow put the card in her bag before she went back to bed, secure in the knowledge that she would wake up there.

When she woke up, she would have sworn it had been a dream if she hadn't found the card in the morning.