a/n: I hope you guys like this chapter. Let me know what you think. Thanks for reading!
Shelby stopped herself from audibly groaning at her computer screen. Beth was sound asleep in the square plastic crib set up at the end of the guest bed. Half-transcribed rituals blinked mockingly at her on the monitor. She curled her upper lip and stabbed at the computer's power button until the hum of the machine was silenced. Nothing was more aggravating than getting stuck when you are so close to success, but Shelby reminded herself that there was nothing more satisfying than completing such a momentous challenge.
After all, this was the kind of task she'd dreamt of as a witch, always looking for something more difficult, more powerful. Always strategic, calculating. This wasn't exactly resurrection. This wasn't as dark as that. Not as dangerous as travel between alternate realities or even time travel, were it possible. But it was difficult. A soul, an entity, a collection of magical atoms travelling in the nethersphere, waiting for directions. The thought of it was almost overwhelming.
"Slow night?"
Shelby jumped in the black swivel chair at the guest room's desk. Jesse was leaning at the door, his forearm balanced on the frame, a black t-shirt hugging his arms.
"Why are you always here?" she asked. She hadn't meant it to sound so hostile.
"Quinn needs a friend around," Jesse shrugged.
"Quinn isn't here right now," Shelby frowned.
"Sofia needs a friend, too. Her daughter is, for all intents and purposes, dead."
"Santana isn't dead. She's out there. We're going to help her," Shelby nodded, determined.
"Why?" asked Jesse, narrowing his eyes, "You've never even met Santana. Why do you care so much about saving her?"
Shelby frowned, irritated by the accusation in his voice. Sure, he was bitter. He was a child who had found his first love and she'd dumped him flat. But where did a teenage boy-toy fit in to motherhood? Her family was already dysfunctional. She didn't need a boyfriend old enough to be her son added into the mix.
"You know well enough that I've never said no to a challenge. I'm always looking to develop my craft."
Jesse stared back at her, considering. "So it wasn't a sudden streak of altruism, then?"
Shelby sighed and looked to Beth, whose tiny pink lips were open and whose soft snore could be heard. "Did Quinn tell you I was thinking of moving back to Lima?"
"Yes," Jesse said quickly, "What are you up to?"
"I'm not up to anything," Shelby exclaimed, taken aback, "I want my daughter to know where she came from."
"You want her to learn as much witchcraft as possible. Like, say, from Quinn."
"Quinn's use of witchcraft is petty and directionless, but... she is powerful. Is it so wrong to want Beth to be around powerful women?"
Jesse pursed his lip, unsure of what to say. He knew he was grasping at straws. Shelby wasn't evil. She wasn't even conniving. Manipulative, maybe. Cold, definitely. A part of him hated her, but that was for personal reasons.
"I just don't want Quinn to get hurt," he said. It was partly truthful.
"I don't intend to hurt her, Jesse," Shelby said stiffly, "I intend to help her. I just have to work out some kinks."
"Have you ever done anything like this before?"
"Not exactly. The closest I ever came to something like... soul displacement... was over a decade ago. It was simpler on some levels. And more difficult on others."
"What was it?"
"I had to remove a small segment of a very specific piece of a human soul, which, in itself, was nearly impossible."
"For what?" Jesse asked, folding his arms over his chest.
Shelby looked away, to the night sky outside the window. "To give it to someone else. Someone who supposedly needed it."
"What, like a... soul transplant?" Jesse asked incredulously.
"It doesn't matter. As far as I know, it wasn't successful." She ran a hand through her wild dark hair. "I don't know what I've gotten myself into."
xxx
Buffy's hand gripped the sandy stone wall that closed off a section of the cemetery reserved for wealthier corpses. The sweat on her palms made it more of a struggle to hitch herself over the wall. She swung her legs over and came tumbling down on the freshly mown, dewy grass. As her feet hit the ground hard, her head began to spin. She blinked rapidly and put her hand to the wall, steadying herself.
"Whoa..." she sighed, a hand at her temple. The grass spun beneath her and she waited impatiently for the sickly sensation to stop.
She slid a stake out from her sleeve and held it close to her, pressing her body against the wall. Footsteps approached near the gate and the shadow of a figure got darker as it neared. Buffy blinked tightly and whirled around, raising her stake, ready to plunge.
"Gah!" Buffy gasped, as Angel stepped forward, his broad shoulders level with the top of her head, "Angel!"
"Buffy," he said, broody as ever.
"What are you doing here?" she asked, sounding as if her nose was clogged.
"Patrolling," she sighed, "What are you doing here?"
"Looking for you... You look terrible."
"Gee, thanks."
"That's not what I mean. You look... ill."
"I have the flu."
"You shouldn't be patrolling with the flu."
"I'm fine. The ground's moving around a little bit, but I like it. It's like a ride," she said dizzily, "Besides, I have work to do."
"One night of rest isn't going to kill you."
"Yeah, but it might kill someone else."
"You mean Santana might? I heard about your guidance counselor. I'm so sorry, Buffy."
Buffy frowned. "Why are you here?"
Angel sighed. "I just came back from Fort Wayne, looking for more of the Kalderash clan."
"For what?"
"A solution." He removed a roll of parchment from inside his leather jacket.
"What is that?"
"Romanian rituals. They're used to find mystical objects, such as... souls."
"You think we can find Santana's soul?"
"Perhaps. If we did find it, all we'd need was a way to give it back to her. We'd have to use witchcraft-"
"I don't think so."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean... It's too late. Santana has killed too many people and she's not going to stop. My friends and my family are in danger, I can't just..." Buffy put her hand to her mouth and started to cough, "... I can't just wait for some magical..." She began to cough again, arching over.
"Buffy, you need to go home," said Angel, putting a hand on her shoulder.
"No," Buffy shook her head and shrugged him, "I'm staying."
"You can't fight anyone like this."
"I'm still the slayer. I have a better chance of fighting off a vamp than anyone else, even sick."
Angel bristled and held out the parchment. "Just take this. Think about it. It might not be too late."
Buffy grabbed the roll of parchment and stuck it in the inside pocket of her jacket. "You should go. Your apartment... can Santana get in?"
"Unfortunately, yes," Angel sighed, "But you don't need to worry about me. I can defend myself against Santana."
"So can I," Buffy brazenly, "I'll see you some other time." Angel hesitated. "Angel, really... go. I'm fine. As long as I'm the slayer, Santana isn't going to kill anyone else."
"Oh, come on, just one more, please!"
Buffy whirled around the see the sharp-toothed vampire facing her in a red minidress and a black leather jacket, looking more fiendish than ever. The vampire pounced over Buffy and pushed down Angel, who sprawled against the ground with a low grunt. Buffy raised her stake but Snix quickly caught her wrist and bent it backwards, eliciting a cry of pain from the slayer until her grasp slackened and she dropped the stake.
"Not feeling so hot, lover?" asked Snix.
Buffy gritted her teeth and swung a left hook that caught Snix's jaw. "That helps."
Snix winced from the pain, but quickly smiled with amusement. "You being off your game is kind of taking the fun out of this." She balled her fist and smashed it into Buffy's face. "Nope, still fun."
The slayer dropped to the ground.
"Uh oh," Snix smiled, "This does not look good for our heroine."
Snix groaned as she felt a hard kick in her kidneys. She dropped to her knees and quickly turned her head to see Angel standing impeccably straight behind her.
"This has to end," he said gravely.
"It will," Snix nodded with a semblance of a smile, "Just not tonight."
She hopped up, impossibly and agile, and jumped the wall, fleeing the cemetery. Angel moved to run after her, but Buffy, sprawled on the grass, caught his eye. Buffy clutched at the ground beneath her and struggled to get up.
"I told you to go... this is my fight..." she sighed and before she could sit up, she collapsed back to the ground, her eyes rolling backwards.
xxx
Quinn threw her arms over the end of Rachel's pink primrose patterned bedspread, kneeling on the carpet and watching with intense interest as Rachel sat cross-legged on top of the bed, pouring over the school's extra-curricular schedule. Her lips were pursed and her eyes were widened, and Quinn couldn't help but notice how cute she looked when she was concentrating. Her room looked like bubblegum had exploded on the walls, and Rachel was Princess Bubblegum, in a skintight pink cardigan with red kisses printed all over the sleeves.
"Quinn, did you hear what I said?" she asked.
Quinn looked up, surprised. "Um... no. Sorry, I was distracted."
"Is everything okay?" asked Rachel, her eyes making perfect circle of concern.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. What were you saying?"
"Just that it would make sense if everyone in glee club split up into pairs and went classroom to classroom with saltwater taffy to make maximum profit and why are you making that face?"
"What face?"
"That face. You don't like my idea."
Quinn's mouth dropped open in protest. She hadn't realized she'd been frowning distastefully.
"No, it's a great idea, it's just... it might not be enough to keep glee club running for the rest of the semester. I know we're not headed toward a competition, but we still need outfits and permits to perform in public places, and with saltwater taffy being, like, twenty five cents a piece-"
"I know, I know. It's not enough. But what else am I supposed to do? We need glee club, Quinn. It's our outlet. Not to mention our guise for scooby gang meetings."
Quinn nodded thoughtfully and rested her chin on the edge of the bed without saying a word. Rachel sighed and folded the school schedule, tossing the square of paper on her soft maple bedside table.
"I'm a horrible person, aren't I?" she asked mournfully.
"What? No, of course not."
"Ms. Pillsbury just died. Mr. Schuester is devastated and the school is in shambles and here I am, thinking about keeping glee club alive, as if anyone is going to be in the mood for quickly choreographed mash-ups and acoustic versions of beloved 80s songs-"
"Rachel, Rachel, I get it. Of course you want to keep glee club running. It's been the lifeblood of our motley crew group of friends. I know that it's important to you... but, yes, the school has not been in the mood for taffy lately. I think we need to do something more. Something for Ms. Pillsbury."
Rachel raised her eyebrows. "Like... a fundraiser?"
"Maybe a concert in the quad," said Quinn, "In memory of Ms. Pillsbury. We can sing some of her favorite songs. Some of the teachers can say a few words..."
"Quinn, that's a great idea!"
"And the proceeds can be split equally between the non-athletic extra-curricular clubs."
Rachel hesitated. "All of them?"
"Yeah. Ms. Pillsbury was always the one to fight the hardest to keep clubs going. She knew we needed something other than the same classes and getting overshadowed by the same hot-headed jocks and cheerleaders. I guess nobody really appreciated her while she was around."
Rachel nodded and picked at her fingernails. "Will that be enough for glee club? I mean, McKinley has a lot of extra-curriculars. There's the Mock UN and the celibacy club and the gaylesball-"
"We'll keep glee club running for as long as we can with the money we raise, but it wouldn't be fair to keep all of the proceeds for New Directions only. Ms. Pillsbury would've wanted us to share it amongst the school."
"I know," Rachel nodded her bowed head.
xxx
"Where is she?"
Joyce Summers sprinted into the emergency room with a large purse hanging from the crook of her elbow and an overcoat almost falling off of her shoulders. Will and Angel stood up from the uncomfortable plastic chairs nailed to the wall.
"Still with the doctors," said Will.
"I want to see her," Joyce said, panicked.
"They won't let us in," said Angel.
Joyce's eyes swivelled to the tall, dark and handsome man beside Will. "Who are you?" she asked, almost accusingly.
"A... friend..." Angel said uncertainly.
"My nephew," Will said quickly.
"Oh..." Joyce said as a man in a long, white lab coat caught her eye.
"Mrs. Summers? I'm Dr. Wilkinson," he introduced himself, with wiry gray hair and thin-rimmed glasses.
"Is Buffy okay?"
"We were able to stabilize-"
"Is she okay?" Joyce stressed.
"She's going to be fine."
Joyce sighed in relief. "Thank God."
"Good," Will nodded, "Good, that's good."
"We should keep her here for a few days, though. She still has some recovering to do."
"How bad is it?" asked Angel.
"Her injuries from the fall were minor. Sprained wrist, a couple of cracked ribs. I'm more concerned about her fever."
"She said she was feeling better this morning," Joyce shook her head, running a hand over her curly blond hair.
"She will be, but she's still suffering from exhaustion and dehydration. You can come see her if you want."
"Of course," Joyce nodded, and she and the men followed Dr. Wilkinson through the eerily quiet, clinical hospital hallways to a room that a few nurses were shuffling out of.
Buffy lay on a gurney in the square emergency room, blinking sleepily, sweat stuck to her forehead.
"Buffy?" Joyce leaned forward, her brow knitted with concern, "Hi, sweetie."
"Hi, Buffy," said Will, with Angel looming over his shoulder.
"Hi..." Buffy sighed, a dozy smile on her lips, "You're here. Are we taking me home?" Buffy's hands grasped at the sides of her gurney and she attempted to hoist herself up.
"Buffy, you need to lie down," said Dr. Wilkinson.
"Yes, lie at home," Buffy protested weakly, "My bed is still better than any bed that's not my bed."
"She's still a little out of it," Dr. Wilkinson mumbled to the others, "She'll feel better after she's been here for a little while."
"No," Buffy frowned, "Let me go."
"Buffy-" Joyce said tentatively.
"Let me go!" Buffy pushed her mother away.
"I need some assistance!" Dr. Wilkinson called out through the door.
Two nurses rushed in, looking weary.
"Will, tell them!" Buffy panicked as the nurses neared her, preparing a syringe, "Tell them! The vampires! I have to fight the vampires!"
"Vampires?" Joyce furrowed her brow.
"She's been like this since she came in," said Dr. Wilkinson.
Will paled. "It must be the fever. It's made her delusional."
"This will help her relax," Dr. Wilkinson assured them as the nurse plunged the syringe into a thin, clear tube running into Buffy's arm as the other held Buffy down by her shoulders.
"Honey?" Joyce frowned, leaning over her daughter.
Buffy struggled to hold her eyelids open. "I want to go home."
Joyce took Buffy's clammy hand. "Everything will be okay, honey. I promise."
"Please don't make me stay. Not here," Buffy murmured as her eyelids dropped.
Buffy fell asleep and the nurses quickly rolled her gurney out of the room.
"I'm not used to seeing Buffy like that," Will shook his head as the three were left in the emergency room with nothing but medical equipment.
"She just hates hospitals. Ever since she was a little girl," said Joyce.
"What happened?" Will asked cautiously.
"When Buffy was eight..." Joyce sighed, stress building in her chest, "Her cousin, Celia, died in a hospital. Buffy was alone with her when it happened. They were very close."
Angel grimaced. "She was eight?"
"She doesn't talk about it, but... she doesn't like hospitals."
"I can't say I blame her," said Will.
"I should call her father."
"I'm sure there's a phone at the nurses' station."
"Thank you for coming. I really appreciate the way you look out for her."
"We're very fond of her," Will nodded.
Joyce paused, her forehead creasing. "I hope I'm not stepping out of line, but... I just wanted to say how sorry I am about the guidance counselor... Ms. Pillsbury. Buffy told me. It's just awful."
Will nodded, trying not to look too pained. He exhaled slowly through his nose. "Thank you," was all he could choke out.
"Buffy's been so upset. She never gets sick."
"I'm sure she'll be okay."
Joyce took Will's hand and squeezed it once. "If you need anything..."
Will nodded. "Thank you."
Angel nervously cleared his throat. "And Buffy will be okay here?"
"I think so. The staff seems competent," Joyce nodded, but Will and Angel shared a look that said they weren't so sure. After all, the hospital was a public building. Anyone could come in.
xxx
Kurt had the windows in the den wide open and let in the light from the pale half moon. He and Blaine faced each other, cross-legged on the shag carpet, their hands entwined. Kurt couldn't hear a single thought, but he did feel a buzz of excitement that he hoped didn't have anything to do with psychic powers.
"You have to feel the energy," he said, his eyes closed, "Take control of it and direct it exactly where you want it to be."
"You sound so professional."
Kurt cracked open one eye to see Blaine staring lovingly at him. "Blaine! You're supposed to have your eyes closed!"
"How am I supposed to close my eyes when you're sitting in front of me?"
Kurt smirked. "You are so cheesy."
"Yeah, totally," Finn came through the door with a bowl of popcorn in one hand and a DVD case tucked under his arm, stepping over Kurt and Blaine to get to the TV set.
"Finn, what are you doing?" Kurt wrinkled his nose and let go of Blaine's hands.
"Watching 'Braveheart'," he said simply and slid the disc into the DVD player.
"Can't you watch it somewhere else?" Kurt urged.
"Mom and Burt are watching 'Castle' in the living room. Can't you go to your room to do your psychic stuff?"
"No," Kurt bristled.
Kurt and Blaine weren't allowed to be in his room alone since Burt realized they were spending an excessive amount of time in there.
"Well, tough stuff,bro," said Finn, leaning back in the recliner with the bowl of popcorn on his lap.
Kurt grimaced as Mel Gibson appeared on the TV screen. He gritted his teeth with frustration and the screen suddenly went black in a split second and Finn's bowl of popcorn exploded, sending burnt kernels flying through the den and getting stuck in the carpet and on the top of the ceiling fan. Finn stood straight up, startled.
Blaine widened his eyes at Kurt. "Was that... you?"
Kurt opened his mouth and closed it again, uncertain. "I don't think so..."
"You don't think so?!" Finn demanded.
"Well... I didn't mean to," Kurt frowned.
"I thought all this hand-holding was supposed to help you control that stuff," Finn frowned, "It's just getting weirder!"
"It's not-" Kurt suddenly jerked forward, eerily still, his eyes wide open.
"Kurt!" Finn gasped, "Is... Is he-?"
"He's having a vision," said Blaine, shifting onto his knees.
"Should we wake him up?"
"No, just wait until he's finished."
"Man, this is messed up-"
"Shh!"
Kurt gasped and reeled back, looking ghostly white.
"Kurt, what is it? What happened?" asked Blaine, alarmed.
Kurt swallowed, trying to calm himself. "Death. Death is near."
xxx
Lights appeared inside Buffy's eyelids as she slid around on her hospital bed, fading in and out of consciousness. She turned, her head lolling at its side. She opened her eyes to see a figure standing in the doorway, illuminated by the unflattering fluorescent hospital lights. She blinked and widened her eyes, trying to get used to the light. The figure was a young boy with a blank face, staring at her. As Buffy attempted to lean forward and call out to him, he walked away, silent.
Another taller figure passed by the door, following the boy, disappearing just as Buffy could barely register the dark clothes and the beak-like nose, like a seventeenth century plague doctor. Buffy sat up and winced as she unhooked her IV. She stood up, slightly dizzy, and walked slowly out the door. The hallways were different now. This was a different hospital. Blue panelled walls and thick, orangewood doors; the kind that led to private rooms. This wasn't the kind of expensive, modern hospital they had in small towns like Lima. This was a private hospital for the wealthier families of Beverly Hills.
Buffy was eight. Small, fair-haired and not plagued with the stress of an ugly divorce and an even uglier destiny. Still innocent. She shook under the harshly lit hallway. She could hear moans of pain in the distance, but didn't know where they were coming from. She nervously passed an empty wheelchair and a tray of medical equipment. Everything seemed so menacing through her young, hazel eyes.
Her arms outstretched, Buffy found her way to a room with a dull light coming from the inside. There was a pale green curtain surrounding a hospital bed, closed all the way around. Buffy wrung her hands together and slowly walked toward the curtain. She reached toward it and grabbed a handful of green fabric, pulling it open...
Buffy woke suddenly, her hair matted to her sweat-soaked forehead. She squirmed in bed and strained her ears to hear the faint sound of children crying out in the hallway. She struggled to sit up, steadying herself on the rail of the hospital bed. Something tugged at her arm and she looked down to see the IV still attached. She winced as she unhooked it and steadied herself against the hospital. A cold sweat covered her body and she took a bracing breath before getting up and walking through the door.
The hospital hallways were the same as before. Linoleum tiles, plywood doors, eerily buzzing fluorescent lights. Not the private clinic from her nightmare. The only similarity was the medicinal smell in the air and the feeling of abandonment. Not a nurse working her way through the graveyard shift could be found. The floor was deserted. She was row after row of identical doors, peering through the rectangular windows to see patients snoozing inside, hooked up to ventilators and heart monitors. She turned her head to see an unassuming janitor at the end of a hall, watching her out of the corner of his beady eye, a mop rested in his wrinkled hand.
Buffy shivered and shook her head, slowly continuing down the hall in her bare feet and thin hospital gown, following the unnerving sound of crying. She turned a sharp corner at the end of the hall to see a small group of orderlies clad in pale blue scrubs wheeling a gurney out of a room. A body lay on top, completely still and draped in a white sheet. Buffy hugged the corner of the wall and shrunk back as the orderlies rolled it away. Goosebumps on her arms, Buffy quietly walked forward to the open door of the room inside to see a children's ward.
A dozen or so single beds lined either side of the walls, which had been painted pale yellow and decorated with large plastic stickers of puppies and rainbows and girls playing hopscotch in a failed attempt to give the room some cheer. Secondhand stuffed animals were strewn on the floor, their ears tattered and fluff spilling out of their tails. Buffy stifled a gasp and shrunk against the door when she noticed two doctors inside. One she recognized as Dr. Wilkinson, the stuffy guy who decided to keep her here. The other looked more mad scientist than medical professional, with disheveled black and gray hair.
"I'm just saying that we should step back the dosage until we get the results," Dr. Wilkinson said sternly.
"This isn't the time. I thought that would have been clear by now."
"The normal course of treatment-"
"They aren't responding to the normal course of treatment. They're getting worse." The wiry-haired doctor moved to one of the children's bad and stuck a long syringe into the child's IV.
"Raising their temperatures is potentially-"
"I have the parents' consent."
"Because they're desperate. They don't understand what you're doing."
"If you have a problem with my methods, bring it up with the board."
"I have."
Buffy moved backwards into the darkness of the hallway, afraid of being caught out of her room. She turned and bumped into a young boy, his head of slicked brown hair barely reaching her shoulders. This was the boy from before, she realized, the boy who was standing outside her door. Wait, but wasn't that a dream? Now, he was holding the hand of a younger girl with an equally sallow face.
"He comes at night. The grown-ups don't see him."
Buffy furrowed her brow. "What?"
"He was with Janie. He'll come back for us."
"...Who?"
"Death."
xxx
Buffy's head felt like a bag of cotton balls when she woke up the next morning, Dr. Wilkinson leaning over her.
"Good morning," he said.
She flinched back and blinked in the daytime brightness. "Coulda fooled me..." she groaned.
"How are you feeling?" he asked, flipping through her chart, "Looks like your fever is down."
Buffy grabbed the metal bars on either side of the hospital bed and hoisted herself up. "Good. Thanks for having me. Let's try and keep in touch."
"Not so fast," he frowned. He placed a gentle hand on her shoulder and grasped her arm. "Hmmm."
"Hm? Bad hm or good hm?"
"Swelling is down... swelling is gone. Does that hurt?"
"Nope."
"Amazing..."
"So I should go."
"Soon. We want to make sure that fever is gone. It's a strong virus."
"Is that what Janie had?"
Dr. Wilkinson blinked at Buffy, clearly startled, when others walked into the room. Will, Tina, Mike, Kurt, Blaine, Quinn and Rachel - carrying a pot of white lilies - came in with nervous smiles on their faces.
"Can we come in?" asked Will.
"Please," Dr. Wilkinson nodded, "Maybe you can keep our patient from bolting."
He nodded to the others and slipped out behind the others after hooking Buffy's chart back to the end of her bed.
"We brought you flowers," Rachel smiled and set the plastic pot down on the bedside table, "We thought it could give your sterile surroundings a touch of class."
"And not to be outdone..." said Tina, pulling a pile of books and loose notes from her black backpack.
"Homework," groaned Buffy.
"Just my way of saying 'get well soon'."
"You know, chocolate says that even better."
"I did all of your assignments. All you have to do is sign your name."
Buffy smiled, raising her eyebrows in surprise. "Chocolate means nothing to me."
Quinn removed a small lace pouch from her pocket and placed it on Buffy's lap. "Healing crystals. They're more a good luck charm than a substitute for medical care, but, I had some lying around, so..."
"Thanks, you guys," Buffy smiled, "It means a lot."
"Nobody told me we were bringing gifts," Kurt frowned, "All I brought was my winning smile and a nasty premonition."
"You had a vision?" asked Buffy, sitting up with interest.
"Yeah," sighed Kurt, "I knew you were sick and I wasn't going to bother you about it but... it's bad."
"What did you see?"
"I saw a face. Like a demon or something. He had pale, leathery skin and white eyes with no pupils. He had fangs and a beak nose and this big black hat... I've never seen anything like it, but I knew what it was."
"Death," Buffy confirmed.
"How did you know?"
Buffy groaned. "Let's take a walk."
Will slowly pushed Buffy's wheelchair down the hall as the others followed quietly.
"A girl died here last night," said Buffy, pulling her bathrobe tight around her chest.
"How?" asked Tina.
"Flu."
"Flu?" Mike raised an eyebrow, "That doesn't sound like our division."
"Well, there's this Dr. Backer guy. He's giving the kids experimental treatment. I'm not sure what he's up to but he creeps me out. And then I met this kid, Ryan. He saw something."
"What?" asked Rachel.
"Death!"
"Death?" Rachel frowned, "As in the Death? The grim reaper."
"Buffy, a scared little kid-" started Will.
"But I saw something, too, I think. Like what Kurt described. I mean, I'm pretty sure I was out of it, but I saw-"
"Death?" Quinn frowned, "Did he have a scythe?"
"Or an hourglass?" asked Mike.
"Maybe it wasn't Death," Buffy sighed, frustrated, "Maybe it was something else."
"Or maybe this is just because you're afraid of hospitals and you want to conjure up a monster you can fight so you won't feel so helpless," said Rachel.
"Rachel!" Tina hissed.
"Your mother did mention what happened to your cousin..." Will said softly.
"That doesn't have anything to do with it! Kurt saw it, too! In his vision!" said Buffy.
"Kurt's visions aren't always spot on," shrugged Rachel, "Am I wrong, Kurt? They're sometimes vague."
"Sure, but when I know something, I know it," said Kurt, "I knew that Spike and Drusilla were back."
"And now you know that Death itself is lurking around the children's ward?" asked Quinn.
"Guys, if Kurt says he's sure of something, he's sure of it," said Blaine.
"This kid Ryan was afraid of something. Something real," said Buffy, "As long as I have to be in this place, I'm going to find out what's going on. Come on, you guys. When have I ever been wrong? When has there actually ever been a perfectly logical explanation to Lima's weirdness?"
Tina shrugged. "That's true. You can't argue with statistics. There's almost always something sinister going on."
"This is the part where we ask, 'Is there anything we can do to help?'" said Mike.
Next up: Conquering death and losing control...