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*****
Xander looked up as Buffy and Melissa entered the
hospital room. "Any change?" Buffy
asked quietly, gazing down on her friend's still body. "Oh God,"
she thought helplessly. "How
could this have happened again? She just doesn't deserve this.
Especially not the week
before Christmas...well, Hanukkah in her case I guess."
"No," Xander answered, his voice tight with emotion.
He didn't know what to do. Here he
was again with his best friend on the verge of death, seven months
after the last time. And
where had they gotten? Had he been able to let her know how he
felt when she was awake
and able to respond? No, he had been a coward. And now
she could die and he would be
alone... Tears came to his eyes as he tried to envision the world without
Willow in it. He
couldn't. She was his world and always had been, but for a very
long time he had failed to
notice. When he finally did, she had wanted to be with Oz, so
he let her. It was the least he
owed her after everything she had done for him over their lives.
Xander gripped the edge of
the bed as a wave of anger washed over him. He wanted to break
something. Actually he
wanted to break someone, Angelus to be exact. He wanted nothing
more than to break every
bone in his body and see him writhe in pain, nothing that is except
for Willow to be well and
safe. He closed his eyes and saw the scene again in slow motion.
Willow hitting Angelus, the
fury coming into his eyes, Willow flying towards the wall. He
heard the sickening crunch again
as she collided with the wall, and he felt once again the scream being
ripped from his throat.
Buffy started when she heard Xander's scream and
broke her gaze at Willow's comatose
body to look up at Xander. It was the same scream with which
he had called Willow's name
when she first hit the wall, and it filled Buffy with the same pain
as it had then. It was the most
heart-rending sound she had ever heard, an odd mixture of pain, regret,
anger, and an
indescribable sorrow. It was the scream of someone whose world
was being ripped apart,
and it broke her heart that that someone was her friend, someone she
loved. She and
Melissa moved towards Xander, engulfing him in a group hug as his scream
died down and
was replaced by wracking sobs. Buffy looked at Melissa and saw
mirrored in her eyes her
own emotions amplified. She saw her pain made worse by the fact
that Melissa could feel
everyone else's pain as well. She also saw her guilt amplified
by Melissa's sense of duty. It
was Melissa's duty to protect Willow and once again, at least in Melissa's
view, she had
failed. Buffy smiled at her through her tears, attempting to
convey a message of absolution to
Melissa. "This is not your fault," she thought, hoping that Melissa
would be able to pick it out
of the jumble of emotions and thoughts in Buffy's mind. Melissa
smiled wanly at Buffy and
nodded slightly, indicating that she had recieved the message and was
willing to accept it...for
now. The three of them stood, locked in each other's arms, until
Xander's sobs subsided and
he pulled away.
"I'm sorry, guys," he said, trying to force a cheerful
voice but failing. "I don't usually get all
weepy like that," he stopped and looked down at Willow. Then
he gathered himself together
and steeled himself. If she could fight Angelus to protect him
(he knew that was what she had
done; his gaze had connected with hers just before she had elbowed
Angelus), then he could
certainly walk out of this hospital room and face her parents and Giles
and Cordelia. He could
also sit out there quietly and wait while they got a chance to see
her. And he could also kill
Angelus when the time came, of that he was certain. By hurting
Willow tonight, Angelus had
virtually taken the sun out of the sky as far as Xander was concerned,
and Xander intended to
make him pay for it. Not tonight, though. Tonight, Xander
had to be there for Willow. Every
night until Willow was well again, Xander had to be there for her,
so Angelus would just have
to wait. But when his time came, he had better be ready, because
Xander was ready and
willing to destroy him.
As the trio emerged from Willow's hospital room,
the group outside stood. Buffy's mother,
Giles, and Xander's parents came forward and enfolded their children
in their arms. The
young people held to their parents as if clinging to life preservers.
The first to break contact
was Xander who turned towards Willow's parents. "I'm sorry,"
he swallowed hard, trying to
keep control of his emotions. "I should have taken care of her
better. I promised when we
were five years old that I would never let anything happen to her.
Now, she's in there and I'm
out here and I didn't keep my promise," he said, blinking back the
tears that threatened to
overtake him again. "No," he thought harshly to himself.
"You have to be strong for them and
for her.
"Xander," Melissa sighed and disengaged herself
from Giles' protective embrace. Walking
over to her friend, she grasped his hands in her own and looked into
his eyes. She could still
remember the first day she had met them; Willow and Xander had been
so nice to her on her
first day at a new school. They had warmly accepted her as a
part of their inner circle and
within a couple of days the three of them and Jesse were practically
inseparable. Before a
week had passed, Melissa would have willingly given her life for any
one of them for the
kindness they had shown her. She didn't know that they were just
decent people; she thought
them the kindest people in the world. Remembering those days
and the light that used to
shine in Xander's eyes she sighed again. His eyes were tired
now, as if that light had been
snuffed out. Perhaps it wasn't dead, though. Perhaps it
just lay in a coma in a bright, sterile
hospital room and would return when Willow woke up. Melissa hoped
for that with all her
heart, and she couldn't stop a tear from slipping down her cheek as
she said, "Blaming
yourself is not going to help Willow. Besides, this is...not...your...fault,"
she added
emphasizing each word. "You are certainly not the only person
who made a promise like
that. This was my responsibility and I failed, but we're not
going to worry about that right now.
It's not going to do any good. We have to concentrate on protecting
her now. I want you to
stay here and be there for her when she wakes up. The rest of
us," she glanced at Buffy,
Giles, and Cordelia who all nodded silently, "are going to set up a
perimeter around the
hospital. We are going to make sure that nobody hurts her.
I promise," she added quietly,
wrapping him in a hug.
Then she spotted Spike and Drusilla sitting forlornly
in waiting chairs along the wall. She
could feel the guilt radiating off them and chastised herself for not
saying something to them
sooner. "They must think I blame them for this," she thought
compassionately. She walked
over to where they sat and sat back on her heels. "Hey," she
said quietly, a small smile
touching her tear-stained face. "Are you guys all right?"
She reached forward and drew
Drusilla into a hug, realizing that she hadn't even gotten to say hello
to her since she had
arrived in town. Then she sat back again and looked at
her beautiful William. The look she
saw on his face broke her heart. Reaching out tentatively, she
briefly touched his mind and
her fears were confirmed. "He blames himself for Willow getting
hurt," she thought sadly.
Feeling lost and tired, she crawled onto his lap just as she had so
many years before. She
laid her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes, shutting out the
world around her for a little
while. "It's not your fault, William," she murmured so that only
he could hear. "You did your
best. Willow's just headstrong. Xander was going to attack
Angelus and it was the only way
she could think of to stop that from happening. She loves him
and she doesn't want him to get
hurt. She's strong, though. She'll make it through this,"
she said emphatically though she
wasn't entirely sure it was true. She rested against Spike's
shoulder for a few more minutes,
then she drew back and looked at him. "William," she said.
"I need you to listen to me. Don't
interrupt, just listen. I love you. I trust you.
I have from the first day I met you. And this is not
your fault. You can't blame yourself. I'm going to need
you when I face Angelus, and I need
to be sure that you'll be able to help me. The blaming stops
here and now," she added more
loudly so that everyone else could hear. "I want everybody to
agree to stop blaming
themselves for this. It's not doing anybody any good. The
only person to blame for this is
Angelus. He threw Willow against that wall, and he is going to
pay for it."
Angelus cringed slightly as he listened from his
vantage point in the shadows around the
corner from the group. "Good job, brain-dead," he scolded himself.
"Not only did you almost
destroy the world, but you've now got one 'brassed-off Slayer' on your
hands." Spike had
been right. He had been referring to a different Slayer then,
but it didn't make much
difference. Neither one of them was much fun when she was mad.
He turned and walked
away, satisfied that he had gotten all the information he was going
to get that night. He
decided that he would check back the next night to see if Willow was
getting any better. If she
wasn't, he would try to find somebody to help her. He didn't
want to see her dying any more
than anybody else did.
*****
Xander sat quietly at Willow's bedside. It
had been four days since that terrible night and
there had been no change. She still laid there, her small body
still, giving no indication that
she would ever wake up. In those four days he had left her side
only to use the bathroom and
to allow her family time with her. He refused to go home to change
clothes and ate only what
was forced on him. He spent his days at her side gazing at her
face and praying to a hundred
different gods that she would be okay. When fatigue overtook
him, he would lay his head on
the mattress and sleep still holding her hand. Today, he looked
around the room. In the past
few days, the small room had filled with flowers as Willow's friends
had attempted to bring
some cheer into the room. A VCR had been brought into the room
and a stack of videos
awaited her awakening. He perused the stack and tears sprang
to his eyes when he saw the
title, "A Charlie Brown Christmas", in it. "Hey, Wil," he said
quietly walking over to her bed.
"Guess what? It's Christmas Eve today. We got the video
so we can watch it tonight. I
promise I'll even do the Snoopy dance for you, twice, if you wake up,"
he added, planting a
kiss on her forehead. He stared at her for a minute, searching
for any sign of awareness,
then sighed. "Well, I guess I should have known that bribery
wouldn't work with you." Then
he decided to try a different tack. "God, if you'll let her wake
up, I promise that I will love and
protect her forever. I'll never let anybody hurt her again."
He had said these words hundreds
of times since they had brought Willow to the hospital, but he prayed
that this time they would
work. Sighing again, he sat down in the chair and rested his
head on the mattress. Then he
cried himself to sleep.
Willow felt herself waking before she opened her
eyes. When she finally did open her
eyes, she tried to sit up, but felt a weight on her legs. Looking
down, she saw Xander's head
pillowed on her legs. Then she felt the damp spot on the blanket
next to his head and realized
he had been crying. "I wonder how long I've been unconscious,"
she thought to herself.
Then she smiled. It was just so strange. Here she was again
in the hospital with Xander at
her side, just as he had been seven months before. That time
she had made a mistake,
though. It was one that she was determined to not make again.
"Xander," she said,
subconsciously using the same note of need that had been in her voice
when she had uttered
Oz's name those seven months before. When he didn't answer, she
shook him softly and
said his name again.
Starting at the sound of his name, Xander looked
up at Willow's face and smiled when he
saw that she was, indeed, awake. "Hi," was all he could think
of to say.
"Hi," she answered back, smiling. "God," he
thought, "she has a beautiful smile."
"How are you feeling?" he asked.
"Not too bad, actually," she answered. She
was somewhat surprised to admit it. Judging
from the look on Xander's face, she had been hurt pretty badly.
Plus, she distinctly
remembered hitting that wall pretty hard. "How long have I been
unconscious?" she asked
quietly.
"Four days," Xander muttered and Willow gasped.
"No wonder I feel pretty good," she
thought. "My body's been mending for four days."
"What day is it today then?" she asked, trying to
do the addition in her head.
"It's Christmas Eve," he answered holding up the
video. "Wanna watch the "A Charlie
Brown Christmas" tape with me?"
"Umm, sure Xander, but do you think that you should
tell someone that I'm awake?" she
asked.
"Oh, yeah," he said, blushing. He quickly
pressed the call button to summon a nurse to the
room. When the nurse bustled in, he let her check on Willow while
he went out to pass the
good news on to the group waiting outside.
He walked out of the room and over to where Willow's
parents and her friends waited
patiently. "She's awake," he said, a smile bursting onto his
face. "She seems to be doing
okay, too. The nurse is in there checking on her right now."
Everybody in the group let out a
sigh of relief, except Spike and Drusilla who didn't breathe.
"Can we see her?" Willow's mother asked hopefully.
She had been worried sick about her
daughter and desperately needed to see for herself that she was going
to be okay.
"Of course you can," the nurse answered, coming
out of the room. "I'm going to have the
doctor check on her, but she's doing remarkably well. She gave
me a list of people she
wants to talk to and the order in which she wants to do so. I
think that young lady has a lot of
questions. She did say, however, that you," the nurse said, looking
at Xander, "have to stay
with her the whole time. You'd better get in there. I get
the feeling that she doesn't intend to
take no for an answer on this one. She wants to talk to her parents
first," she concluded, then
walked off, handing the list to Xander. Xander and Willow's parents,
deciding that perhaps the
nurse was right, hastened into Willow's room, leaving a group of smiling
people behind them.
*****
Willow looked up as Melissa entered the room.
"Hi," she said beaming. It was the first
opportunity she had to give her friend a proper hello. "Come
here and give me a hug," she
commanded and Melissa willingly obeyed. "Okay, so what are you
doing here? When did
you get here? Why did you have a stake in your hand when you
showed up at the mansion?
Do you know Angel? Because it certainly seemed like he knew you.
He was afraid of you, I
could tell."
"Okay, okay," Melissa said, laughing for the first
time in days. "Slow down. One question
at a time, okay? Let's see. I'm here to save the world
and because I finally turned eighteen
which means I don't have to live with those people any more.
I got here four days ago, the
same night Angelus took you. I had a stake in my hand because
that's the best way to kill
vampires and I thought I might need to kill one. I knew Angel
and he was my friend, but he's
gone. I know some of the habits of Angelus thanks to Angel.
And yes, he knows me. He
certainly should be afraid of me now. He almost killed you.
That was one of the dumbest
moves he ever made. You see, it's my job to protect you.
Xander will fill you in on the
details. It's a pretty long story. He can tell it to you
while Buffy and I go patrol. Let's just say I
used to be a Slayer and now I'm the Chosen One. Being the Chosen
One means I'm
supposed to keep you alive, so that's what the stake was for.
Xander will tell you the details
while I'm gone, then I'll fill in anything he missed when I get back,"
she said, hugging Willow
again and heading for the door.
She met Buffy outside the door and together the
two blonde-haired Slayers exited the
hospital. They were on a serious mission. It did not, however,
involve the slaying of demons,
witches, or any other assorted ghoulies. It was Christmas Eve
and neither of them had
bought a single present. They had some serious shopping to do
if they were going to be
finished in time. Luckily for their friends, Buffy and Melissa
were two females up to the task.
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