„William? What are you doing?“
Jenny’s tongue felt strangely thick as she called her son’s name. He was sitting in the garden, holding a pack of cards in his small hands.
The little boy´s concentration was so intense that he heard but didn’t respond to the question until she repeated it.
He cocked his head, waved at her and answered: “I’m playing cards with Buffy, Mommy.”

She closed her eyes, doing her best to keep from looking deeply scared.
Oh God, please… not again, she thought as she let her head fall slowly backwards.
“Come in, William!” she shouted, realizing that her voice was coarser that she had intended it to be.
“But Mom…,” he protested as he saw her running towards him.
She grabbed both his arms and, ignoring his outcry, carried him back to the house.
“Buffy!,” he screamed and stretched out his arms, trying desperately to get back to her, but he couldn’t free himself from his mother’s grasp.

With a loud bang she closed the door behind them and said: “William, for God’s sake, can you just stop that?”
Looking at her with his innocent blue eyes he asked: “Stop what?”
She let out a sound that was more sob than sigh, though it was composed of both.
Her increasingly raspy voice fell to a whisper.
“Stop talking about… that girl.” In spite of the summer heat she suddenly felt as if an icy wind was blowing, causing her goosebumps.

“Buffy´s my friend!” he said defiantly and folded his arms while his eyes filled with tears.
As soon as he spoke the name, Buffy, she felt the hairs on her neck stand up. She cupped his face with her hands and said softly: “William, sweetie… we talked about it, didn’t we? Your friend Buffy…” She paused for a moment and took a deep breath, as if trying to encourage herself to go on.
“Buffy’s not real, darling. You know that. She’s only in your imagination.”

“No!”
He shook his head and pointed at the window.
“She is there, Mommy, can’t you see her? Look!”
He took her hand and went with her to the window.
“She’s sitting there… she waits for me! Why can’t I play with her?”
His lower lip started to tremble and she knew that he was about to cry.
With shaking hands she caressed his silky hair and tried her best to keep her voice as calm and soft as she wanted it sound.
“William, you know that you had just made it up.”
He was still pointing at the place where, of course, no one was sitting.

It had been about five months ago when William had spoken of Buffy for the very first time.
He had described her as a girl with blonde hair and a “somehow strange nose”, but obviously he liked her. So much that he picked flowers for her, telling his mother that she was the only girl he liked to play with.
When he talked to his mother, his conversation consisted of “Buffy said…” and “Buffy did…” and although she was in the beginning slightly amused that her five-year-old son seemed to be in love, she soon felt that something strange was going on.

And then she had found out the truth about William’s little girlfriend Buffy.
She remembered the terrifying moment when she had realized that Buffy was not a girl that William had met in the kindergarten.
She had watched him playing in his room and talking as if someone was with him, but he had been alone. And when she had asked him who he was talking with, he had answered: “I’m playing with Buffy. Can she stay for dinner? Please, Mommy!”

He can’t deal with his father’s death, she thought. He’s just a little boy who has lost his father, he’s scared and he can’t understand why Daddy won’t come back. That’s why he had made up an invisible friend.”

A sudden weight of fear and pity made her force back her tears while she looked at William.
He was a lovely little boy and usually she sensed when he was lying… but whenever he talked about Buffy, his eyes were sparkling with a mixture of joy and honesty.

She was scared and she had no idea what to do.
Her neighbour and best friend Darla had advised her to consult a child psychologist a few days ago and while she watched William waving sadly at his invisible friend, she decided to take him to Dr. Rupert Giles, one of the most reputable psychologists.

It took seven months until William stopped talking about the girl.
During the first weeks he refused furiously to believe that his little girlfriend was just a product of his imagination, but by and by he seemed to accept it.

He looked somewhat sad and lost, but he never mentioned Buffy again, although in some hidden little corner of his heart he knew that she was real.


*******



When he woke and was unable to breathe, he stretched out a hand to touch his brow.
His skin was covered with fine, cold sweat and he realized that his heart was pounding heavily.
He couldn’t remember the dream that had woken him, an irritating mixture of blurring pictures and hastily spoken words, and he gave up trying to reconstruct it.

Intending to get up, he moved forward.

And then he saw her.

She was standing in the middle of his room, gazing down at him, her face bathed by the silvery moon light.

For a moment he felt disoriented, as though he had briefly stepped outside the flow of time, and now, stepping in again, could not adjust to the pace of life.
He smelled noises, heard smells, his senses moved and crowded each other for attention.
A slow tingle of recognition began as an electric pulse in his stomach, his inner thighs; memory only in body, not yet in mind.

Her hair was still the color of fresh honey, her green eyes still playful and alert- taking everything in.
She was grown-up now, just as he was, and although her face had changed, losing its innocent and childish expression, he immediately recognized her.

“Buffy…?,” he asked, hesitating.
He had been six years old when he had seen her for the last time, and now, more than twenty years later, she entered his life again, unexpected like a thunderstorm on a warm summer night.

His “invisible” friend Buffy.

“Is that you?,” he whispered, amazed at his voice sounding so calm while the world swam sideways.
His hands fluttered in the air, butterflies with nowhere to land.

“William… help me,” her voice was as thin and transparent as a gust of wind, but when he stretched out his hands to touch her, she disappeared, leaving him with a strange feeling of disbelief and excitement.


His eyes watered with the effort he was making to peer through the darkness. He reached for the switch on the reading lamp that was fixed to the headboard of his bed, but he realized that he was alone in the room.
His heart hammered against his chest as he stretched out a hand, feeling nothing but the chill night air.
“Buffy…,” again he spoke her name, thinking that he had fallen into a dream without first falling into sleep, but for some strange reasons he was sure that he had really seen her.
Although more than twenty years had passed since he had seen Buffy for the last time, he could remember everything from that time, down to the smallest details.
He closed his eyes and the years began to move in reverse, like the hands of a clock moving in the wrong direction.

“Do you want to play hide-and-seek,?” he asked after he had given her the flowers he had picked for her.
She nodded and buried her face in her hands while she began to count. “One, two, three, four, seven, twelve…”
“Hey, you’re cheating!” he protested.
“No, I’m not”, she began to giggle as he folded his arms.
“Girls are stupid!”
“Boys are much more stupid!”
“I don’ want to play with you anymore”, he said, knowing that he was lying.
“Okay, then I’ll go home and I won’t come back”, she said and, pretending that she was leaving, turned away from him.
“No, you must stay!” he shouted, following her with quick steps.
They looked at each other, chuckling.

“I want to play something else”, she suggested.
“What?”
“Hmm… let’s play that we are married. You’re my husband and you want to take me out for dinner. You must tell me that my dress is beautiful and that…”
“But you’re not wearing a dress”, he reminded her. “And I don’t want to play that we’re married. EEEEEW!”
She rolled her eyes. “Why not?”
He grimaced. “Because you’re a girl! And girls are stupid!”

He knew that many children had invisible friends, but he remained convinced that on a deep mysterious level, against all evidence to the contrary, his friend Buffy had been more than just a product of his imagination. His stubborn persistence through the years had been motivated by something more desperate than hope, by a faith that sometimes seemed foolish to him but that he never abandoned. He needed to believe that she existed, that she was not just a lonesome child’s fantasy.
For him she was just as real as the air that he was breathing, as true as the warmth of the sun.

He opened the window and looked out into the dark blue night sky. Listening to the sounds of the nearby river, he leaned his head against the glass pane. Usually a calming presence, the gushing of the river tonight was overloud, filling his head with white noise.

He thought of the moment when he had realized that she was standing in his room.
She had been a little girl when he had seen her for the last time… but now she seemed to be a young woman, with the same big green eyes and the blonde hair that framed her face.

Where had she been all the years? What had happened to her?

”Help me…”
He remembered the words that she had spoken, almost as silent as a whisper. Something cold and slick curled in his already twisting gut, something indefinable, like a suddenly arising feeling of fear.

“God, what is happening to me?” The words slipped from his lips as he watched the very first rays of sun displacing the darkness.
“Buffy… how can I help you?” He spoke into the silence, not knowing that it would take seventeen more days until he would see her again.

At first he thought he was hearing a sound left over from his dream. He had been dreaming about Buffy and although he couldn’t reconstruct every single detail, he knew that in his dream their lips had met briefly, soft and wet, leaving a thread of spittle connecting them when they drew apart.
She had whispered his name, over and over again.

When he began to wake up, he struggled against consciousness, tried to hold on to sleep and prevent the fantasy from fading, but then he realized that someone was really calling his name.

“William… help me.”

He squinted into the impenetrable shadows, saw nothing, cocked his head, and listened intently.

“Please help me.”

He stood up and winced as he suddenly saw her appearing, her presence betrayed only by the silent rustling of her dress.
Her lips parted to a silent “William”, and she smiled sadly.

He wanted to ask her so many questions, he had waited so long to see her again, but when he most desperately needed to talk to her, he was speechless.
“Buffy…,” he finally managed to say, realizing that her eyes were looking dull.

“Help me…” Her pale face, bathed in the softening glow of the moonlight, had an expression he couldn’t stand and he stretched out a hand to touch her.

“Please…,” she whispered.

“Where are you, Buffy? Where can I find you?”

His eyes widened in shock as he realized that she was about to disappear again.
“I’ll do anything… I swear I’ll do my best to help you… I’ll find you, Buffy!,” he shouted.
He knew that he could keep the first two promises. The third, however, was something less meaningful than wishful thinking.

She faded and his outstreched hands felt nothing but cold air.
“Buffy…Summers…” the last word slipped from her pale lips almost as thin as a piece of silk.

And then she was gone.

He could smell the scent of her hair and he stood perfectly still, fearing that any movement he made would cause the memory to fade as well, leaving him with only the sour smell of his night sweat.

*****


Buffy Summers.

He had spend more than five hours to find out where she might live and now he stared at the monitor. The dropping sensation in the stomach, the tightening in the chest, the lightheadedness familiar from the sudden speedy plunge of a roller coaster afflicted him now, as he sat dead still on the chair.
Buffy Summers, Sunnydale, California.

A phone number.

With shaking fingers he began to dial the number.

And then he heard a sleepy voice saying “hello?”

He dropped the receiver and tried to stand up, but unable to break away from whatever force was keeping him there, he stared at the telephone.

The voice belonged to a man.


*******


The afternoon became a slow dream sequence for Spike, no bridge between each scene- just snapshots of Buffy and an unknown man’s shape.
He woke with a vague feeling of concern and uneasiness, thinking of the telephone call a few hours ago.
He didn’t know what exactly he had expected when he had dialled the number, but for some strange reasons he hadn’t been prepared for a guy on the phone.

Who was he?

Maybe her father, he thought.
Or a brother.

There was another possibility, but he repressed the thought of a husband as soon as it came to his mind.

And he knew that there was just one way to find the answers to all of his questions.

********


1630, Revello Drive.

Buffy Summers, his “invisible” friend, had been living less than two hours away from him- maybe for ages- and he hadn’t known.
He sighed- a long, exhausted sigh as if the journey of his life had finally led him to a place of rest.

He didn’t know his eyes were closed until someone touched his shoulder, asking him if he was okay, and he opened them.
An elderly man looked at him with an expression on his face that was more suspiciousness than concern.
“I’m fine, thanks”, he answered, doing his best to keep his voice as blithe as he wanted it to sound.

He forced himself to walk towards the house, taking in deep breaths that didn’t fortify him.
God, he didn’t have the slightest idea what to say… or what to do.
Now that he was standing in front of the door, he could ease some of the stiffness in his hands, rubbing them together, stretching his fingers, curling his fists.
The cool wind began to seep down his neck, drying his sweat.

With shaking fingers he rang the doorbell while hundreds of thoughts shot through his head, making him feel dizzy and confused.
It felt like a million of years had passed until the door was finally opened by a tall young man.

“Yes?,” he asked, furrowing his brow.

Spike cleared his throat, but not a single tone left his lips.
“Can I help you?” The guy spoke with soft, drawn-out syllables that reminded Spike of the way one would talk to a stupid child.
“Is… Buffy at home,?” he heard himself say, realizing the flare in the other’s eyes as he spoke the name.

“Buffy? May I ask who you are?” The undertone in his voice became suddenly harsh.

“I’m a friend of her’s. I’m William and…”

“William?” He spoke the name as if it was something bitter and poisouness he needed to spit out.
For a moment Spike was sure that the guy was about to knee him in the guts. His grey eyes were like a placid night sea, but below the unremarkable surface were great teeming depths full of anger.
“She never talked about anyone called William… as far as I can remember.”
“We haven’t seen each other for ages”, Spike explained, trying hard to calm down as he felt an unexplainable urge to grab him by the scruff of the neck.

“Whatever. I don’t want to be rude, but to be honest, I’ve got a lot stuff to do.”


Spike took a deep breath, clenching his fists, but said nothing.
“Well, my wife’s not at home right now, but I`ll tell her that you’ve been here.”

He slammed the door before Spike was able to react, before he could even face the fact that he had emphasized the two words that caused a suddenly arising feeling of pain in him:
My wife.

Unable to move, or to breathe, he stared at the door, trying desperately to stay calm.
The ground seemed to resolve, he felt wide, rising.

All the years filled with wondering, and the anguish of not knowing if she was real or just a fragment of a child’s imagination, momentarily disappeared.
Now he knew that she really existed.

But she was married.

None of this made sense, like a picture blurred and off-kilter.

And he felt as if someone had written the end of the story before he’d even found the beginning.

Although it was a warm autumn night, he felt as if an icy hand was squeezing his entrails.
He searched his pocket for the car keys, doubting that he would be able to drive, doubting that he would be able to do anything .

He didn’t realize someone was talking to him until he felt a hand on his back.
He turned around and found himself looking at a young girl with long, dark hair. Her blue eyes were so clear they seemed almost see-through.

“Hey”, she said, blushing.
“I’m sorry, I don’t wanna be nosy or something, but I heard your…erm… conversation with Riley.”
She paused and tucked her hair behind her ear.
“I’m Dawn”, she finally said, as if it would explain everything.
“Buffy’s sister.”
She tilted her neck a little more to the side, her smile widening just a tad as she swung her hair behind her shoulders.

His lips parted to a silent “oh” as he grasped her outstretched hand.

“Well, you said you are Buffy’s friend?”

He nodded, cleaned his throat and said: “We met each other when we were children, but I… erm… kinda lost sight of her.”

He realized she was avoiding meeting gazes with him when she whispered: “So you don’t know what happened to her?”

He stared at her, watching the sad expression on her face, and, refusing to consider what was coming, heard her say:

“Buffy’s sick.”

“What do you mean with ‘sick’”,? he finally brought himself to say, not realizing that his voice had fallen to a whisper.

She was preparing to explain it to him and he sensed that the story she was about to tell couldn’t be summed up in two or three sentences.

Sick... the word whirred in his head like a restless ghost and he searched for something, anything to say to Dawn- but he only found a grey swirling space as his mouth opened and closed.

******

They were sitting in Spike’s car, sharing a silence that was almost as deep as a night ocean.
Dawn took a deep breath and, kneading her fingers, began to speak.
“When Mom died… two years ago… we felt so lost and helpless. Her death was so abrupt, so unexpected, you know…we couldn’t deal with it. Suddenly I felt as if I was a forlorn and terrified child… and in a way I’ve really been. Buffy did her best to be there for me whenever I needed her. But she was just as helpless as I was, and it was just too much for her to be my mother, my father, my sister and my best friend… all at the same time. And then she met Riley at college.”

She paused as if searching for the right words.
“He kept her grounded and he helped her to endure the hardest weeks after Mom’s death. Last year he proposed marriage to her- and she accepted.”
Dawn placed her arms around her upper body as if she was cold and continued, ignoring Spike’s silent fizzling.
“I never thought she would accept- I mean, she claimed that she loved him, but I can’t believe that. She never looks at him as if she’s in love. There’s no sparkling in her eyes… she isn’t beaming with joy when he pays her compliments… there’s never a dreamy expression on her face, you know what I mean? She just doesn’t behave like any woman in love would do.”
She didn’t seem to expect an answer, but he asked, anyway:
“So why did she marry him?”

Her voice fell to a whisper and she avoided meeting gazes with him, when the words slipped from her lips:
“I think she did it mostly because of me. She wanted to make sure that I could go to college, that I lacked nothing.”
She sighed and closed her eyes, trying to force back her tears.
“She married Riley ‘cause she wanted me to live in comfort. Dad is living in L.A. with his new wife, he never really cared about us. He left us when I was a baby. If Buffy hadn’t married Riley, we would’ve been forced to give up our house and everything we loved… the memories of our childhood… and of Mom.”

A single tear was streaking down her pale cheek as she went on:
“A few months ago I remarked that she was unnaturally pale. She seemed to be so weak and powerless. First I thought it was because she’s unhappy with Riley, but when I begged her to go to a doctor…”

She couldn’t bring herself to speak further and when she looked at him, eyes full of uncried tears, he lifted a hand and touched softly her face.
“What did the doctor find out?,” he asked, before he could decide whether he really wanted to know.
A sad smile crossed her face, and her eyes never left his as she finally said the words that numbed his soul.

“She has leukaemia.”


*~*~*~*~*


He wanted to stand up, run away, but how could he when his legs were made of nothing more than the blue-black air outside the car? He had as much command over his body as he did over the wind or the moon. Unable to anything at all, he stared helplessly at her, wishing suddenly that he had misunderstood the meaning of her words.
Looking into the darkness, his hands fidgeting in his lap, he wanted to be someone else, or someplace else.

“How long…,?” he asked with the strained voice he used after he’d been sick and was trying to pretend he was already well.
“We know about it since last summer.”

He tried in vain to swallow his suddenly sour tasting saliva, feeling as if an iron fist had been rammed into his stomach, pressing the breath out of his lungs.
With his eyes widely open he turned to Dawn, when he heard her whispering:
“Riley’s family is extremely religious… and so is he. When Buffy told him that she had leukaemia, I thought he would do anything in his power to help her, but I was wrong.”

She buried her face in her hands and, sobbing, said:
“He said that all we could do is praying for a miracle. He didn’t want Buffy to get any medication… he didn’t even want to hear about a chemotherapy. He’s convinced that any form of medical attendance is blasphemy. He always says: “If it’s God’s will, she’ll defeat the leukaemia.”

Spike closed his fist in his lap, the thing he did when attempting to stop a flow of unwanted words. It usally worked.
“Insane bastard! I swear I’ll kill him,” he hissed, his clenched fist not doing his job.

“God, I hate him so much! I hate his set of beliefs… his insanity.”
With her right hand she wiped away her tears, doing her best to keep her countenance.
“Last week he finally gave in under the pressure of our friends and the neighbors.”
She let out a humorless laugh and explained:
“I guess he did it ‘cause he was aware that Buffy’s best friend Xander would have dashed out his brain if he hadn’t agreed to pay the medical treatment.”

“Where is Buffy now?” Spike’s voice sounded somehow strange, as if it belonged to somebody else.

“She's in hospital.”

“How is she?,” he wanted to hear the answer and he wanted to scream against it.
Dawn looked at him, her lips shaking, trying desperately to hold back her tears.

He understood.
She didn’t need to say anything, the expression on her face was answer enough.
He patted her shoulder, unsure if he was trying to ease her pain or his own.

“Can you take me to her?,” he asked quietly.

*~*~*~*~*



“That’s her room”, Dawn whispered, pointing at the door with the number 312.
He nodded, feeling suddenly that he wasn’t able to keep breathing under the weight of sadness that pressed his voice thinner than a whisper.
“I’d like to be alone with her… just for a moment.”

He put a hand on the doorknob while hundred of thoughts filled his head, making him dizzy.
His stomach tingled like it was too heavy and didn’t want to enter the room with him, when he finally opened the door.


TBC