Buffy followed William up the stairs silently. Jenny had left to go to the hospital on their arrival, asking Buffy to please make William eat something. Buffy had nodded and headed to the stairs that William was already ascending.
He opened the door to his room and she trailed in after him. 'Ok,' Buffy thought. 'Wouldn't have expected the Sex Pistols poster.' She had expected the packed bookshelves and neat stacks of books on the floor where they had obviously overflowed. The room was somewhat sad. Save the one poster, nothing else adorned the walls which were a flat, plain white. Other than books, he had little in the room, just a bed neatly covered in a personality free blue striped duvet. She noted the short stack of CDs in one corner next to a small stereo. The book she'd given him lay on his lone nightstand next to a couple small picture frames. Compared to the clutter of the rooms of most of her friends and, she admitted, her own room, it was practically bare.
He was sitting on the corner of the bed, head down. She went over to him.
"Ok, you need to shower first. You'll feel better after you shower." She said to him and ignored the look of disbelief he shot her at her words. That look conveyed wordlessly and effectively his feeling that nothing could make him feel better, let alone a mere shower.
He remained motionless. Seeing that he wasn't about to move, Buffy went back into the hall in search of a linen closet. Finding it, she grabbed a towel and walked back to him.
"You. Shower. Now." She said firmly, pushing the towel at him. He let himself fall back on the bed, disregarding the offered towel, letting it lie, still folded, on his chest.
Buffy frowned in exasperation. She would make him do this. She grabbed one arm with her good one and managed with great effort to drag him back to a sitting position. Moving the towel, she yanked at the bottom of his t-shirt, with one hand and began to pull it over his head. Halfway up, he got annoyed at her awkward fumbling and pulled it over his head himself. He still didn't acknowledge anything, just sat staring dully at the floor.
Inappropriate thoughts crossed her mind. 'Who would've thought that was under there?' She noticed the smooth slabs of muscle across his chest and well defined abs. She shook herself mentally, 'Not exactly the time for that, Buffy!' and filed the information away for later perusal.
"Up." Buffy commanded, doing her best to assist him one-handed. He shot her a full on glare this time, but acquiesced and got to his feet without complaint. She grabbed the towel again and shoved it at him, waiting this time until he brought his hands up slowly to take it. She turned him around. "I like you William, but you're going to have to do the rest yourself." She said staunchly and then realized she had no idea which way to push him. He looked at her blankly for a second and then went off in the direction of the bathroom.
She waited until she heard the shower turn on and descended the stairs in search of the kitchen.
Buffy had thought her culinary skills would be up to making a sandwich, but she realized she knew nothing about what William liked on one. So she left the cold cuts alone and extended her search of the refrigerator. 'Aha!' She thought triumphantly. 'Leftover lasagna. That'll work.' She removed the container and set about heating it up, even putting a little of the bagged salad from the crisper on the side. She pondered dressings and finally chose an inoffensive oil and vinegar.
She covered the meal with foil and waited.
After fifteen minutes, she realized he wasn't coming down. 'Damn it.' She thought. 'Well, he'll have to eat lukewarm pasta and salad.' She snatched the plate and a cold coke and went upstairs in search of him.
After another twenty minutes of sitting on his bed with no sign of him, she started to get nervous. What was he doing? What was taking so long? Had he fallen asleep in there?
She followed the sound of the shower in the hall to a door. "William?" She called out.
No answer.
"William, you're scaring me. If you don't answer me or come out, I'm coming in!" Buffy declared loudly.
No answer.
"Great." Buffy muttered. She tried the door handle halfheartedly. Locked. Of course.
Oh, but the lock was the same type they had at her house. That she could deal with. After years of sharing a bathroom with her selfish, hot water and mirror hogging sister, she had a ton of practice at this.
She went back to the bedroom and got a wire hanger from his closet. She straightened out the hook carefully and with difficulty, 'Stupid cast,' she thought, and stuck it in the little hole.
The lock popped open obediently with a satisfying click. "Last chance, William!" She called hopefully, "If you don't answer me, I'm coming in!" Her threats went unheard or unheeded and there was no sound from the bathroom.
She took a deep breath and opened the door. The room was cloudy with steam and she took a moment to figure out where everything was, carefully peeping through a crack in the fingers of the hand which she held to her eyes. "Ok…I'm in here." Buffy said. "Where are you?"
She took the towel she'd given him from the hook on the wall and headed apprehensively for the tub. The curtain was opaque. 'Thank God,' she thought and then realized that it didn't matter. He still hadn't answered her, so she was going to have to draw it back. Bracing the towel between her bad wrist and hip, she closed her eyes and pulled the curtain back a tiny bit.
No shriek of outrage met her action. 'Ok, that's good.' Buffy thought, eyes still shut, 'No, wait, that's bad. What the hell's wrong with him?'
She sighed and peeped in past the curtain. "Oh God." He was curled in a ball on the bottom of the tub, facing away from her. The water had run cold, but he didn't seem to be aware of it. It must've turned cold recently, because the room was still steamy. She dropped the towel and quickly turned off the taps. 'Now what to do,' she thought frantically. 'Sooooo not equipped for this.' Gamely, she got the towel off the floor and dropped it on him, giving him enough coverage for decency. 'Uh, more towels.' The one she'd placed on him was already getting damp on the edges as it drifted in the water around him. She scrambled to get a couple more.
Returning, she was still at a loss. 'What am I doing here?' She thought furiously to herself, 'I'm no good at comforting people. Not a strong suit. My tubside manner sucks, really.'
Was he sleeping? Had he not slept in days? How could you fall asleep with cold water pouring down on you? Had he passed out? She had no idea. 'C'mon Buffy, he could be in trouble or something.' She forced herself forward again, armed with her towels, and knelt by the tub.
Dropping the towels, she reached out a hand and gently patted at his head, tousling the wet curls there. "William," she said softly. "C'mon, William, are you ok?" He moaned and turned his head to her, brilliant blue eyes opening and blinking at the overhead light. 'Oh, good. He's alive." Buffy thought, relieved. This thought led to, 'He's alive and totally naked and I'm like two feet from him.' Blushing, she said, "Can you sit up? I'm not sure what happened. Did you pass out, do you think? Did you bump your head or something? Are you ok?" She pelted his impassive form with words as the stream of babble escaped her lips.
He brought his hand to his head slowly, twisting his body slightly. She panicked, readjusted the towel on him with a swift flick and retreated. He sat up. "Yeah. I'm ok. Not sure, must've fallen asleep."
She saw the moment everything came back to him and the realization of the current situation hit him. He too blushed, suffusing his face with red. "Um."
Buffy hastily took a spare towel and put it on his head, rubbing gently at his hair as best she could and averting her eyes. "Yeah, um. You didn't answer and the water was all cold and I know how to open these locks and well I got worried and-"
"Got another towel there, pet? This one's wet." He asked her quietly.
"Yes! Towel. Right here. Right…yeah." Buffy took her hand off his head and handed him the other towel. "Um, you ok now? 'Cause I could uh, let you get up and dry off and…you're probably cold..." She clumsily got up from her knees and backed out of the room hastily.
"Yes. I'm ok. Be right out." He said, closing his eyes in embarrassment.
'Hmmm.' Buffy thought. 'If I had a brain, it would've clued me in that naked William had no clothes in the bathroom and would be coming in here shortly in a TOWEL. Then, maybe I would've done the decent thing and LEFT THE ROOM to give him some privacy.' She gaped at him silently for a minute as he appeared in the doorway and smacked down the part of her mind that piped up that it didn't really mind seeing William in a towel.
She could just hear the conversation now, 'Hey, William, I know your Mom's sick and all, but it's strange, I suddenly noticed how surprisingly hot you are under those unattractive clothes you wear all the time and-' Another mental smackdown. 'Not the time! Soooooo not the time! Maybe never the time!' She repeated to the offending voice in her head. 'What's wrong with you anyway!'
Oblivious to her inner monologue, he scrunched up his eyes and peered at her.
"Uh, I just wanted to tell you that I left some food here for you." She motioned to the plate on the bed next to her. "And a drink." Another gesture at the nightstand. "And uh, I reheated it, so it should be kinda warm and I'll just go downstairs and maybe you can come down there when you've got stuff on…and stuff." Buffy got up, "Oh and if you don't like it, there's other stuff downstairs and just tell me and I'll get something else and…yeah-" she brushed past him as she exited through the doorway. She shivered and hastened down the stairs.
William thought these were quite possibly some of the worst and also most confusing few days he'd ever had, though the number of those was growing rapidly. Grabbing a pair of jeans, he pulled them on. He wished he could knit together the tattered shreds of his lost dignity and don it as easily.
He came downstairs, still looking slightly abashed and out of sorts, to find her sitting on the couch, staring at the television. She saw him and sat up straight, "Oh, I turned this on while I was waiting, hope you don't mind." She switched it off.
"I don't mind." He said, pausing at the bottom of the stairs. Then he crossed the room to drop into an armchair. He didn't know what to say. His mind was numb and sleep deprived, running on fumes. The only sleep he'd gotten in the past two nights was from quick dozes when he nodded off now and then in the uncomfortable hospital chair. He'd eaten a few bites of the lasagna, stubbornly ignoring the salad, and now those bites sat like leaden lumps in the pit of his stomach. He felt ill, light-headed and fairly humiliated by the earlier scene in the bathroom. Buffy was the last person he would've chosen to see him at his lowest point. Finally he asked, "Why are you here?"
Buffy flushed, "I was just waiting to see if you were ok. If you needed anything else-" She broke off there. His blue eyes were intense and not entirely warm and she felt for the first time that this unnerving new William might actually be a stranger to her.
"No, I mean, why are you here at all?" He asked her softly, and then recalling what his aunt had said when they arrived about her earlier meeting with Buffy, he asked, "How did you even know where I live to talk to Jenny? Not like we're friends…"
Buffy didn't think she could be more uncomfortable, "Yes, we are, William. We- we're friends." She stammered. "You've been helping me and-"
William let his head fall to rest on the back of the chair and was silent; then speech suddenly returned to him. "Yes. I've been helping you and you gave me lovely gifts in return and that was nice, but..." He rubbed his eyes wearily, "We aren't friends. Not really."
Buffy squirmed, "I'm your friend." She looked down. "You know I don't just go around helping all the naked, sleeping in the shower people I come across…" She said, joking weakly, and making a face at her own garbled sentence. The feeble jest backfired as he flinched visibly.
He raised his head and looked at her squarely, "Yes, thanks for that. I appreciate it, I do. But friends are friends in public too, you know. They talk to each other in the halls, sit together at lunch and do things outside of school. I don't need secret friends."
Buffy stood up. "Hey, I was your friend when Angel was being mean to you! That was public. That was a public hallway and that was bad and-" she shook her cast at him. "How was I supposed to know you could kick his ass!"
"Yes, how would you know anything about me?" William retorted sharply.
Buffy was taken aback. "I asked you questions sometimes, mister…mister quiet guy and sometimes you didn't want to talk very much and you-" she suddenly remembered why she was at his house and said more calmly, "You know what? You don't need this right now. I'm sorry I disturbed you by sticking around. If you'll be ok, I'll just go now."
He closed his eyes in frustration and pinched the bridge of his nose as though he had a headache. "You don't have a car, pet, remember?"
"I can go. I can…" Buffy paused to think and came up with nothing, "I can walk somewhere and…"
"You're not walking anywhere. I'll drive you home. You came over to help me and I thank you for that. Be poor thanks to send you out walking around town in the dark by yourself." He grabbed his keys from where she'd left them on the coffee table and motioned for her to go to the door.
Her face was still distressed and stubborn, "I can call-"
He grasped her small shoulder and pushed her gently to the door. "I'll drive. Please get in. I'm a little more awake after the shower, but I do need to get some real sleep soon."
End Note: Please don't be too mad at William. I know some people will be, because Buffy was only trying to help. I'll tell you, I've slept for multiple days in those hospital chairs and MAN you start to get wacky from sleep deprivation fairly quickly.
Please review if you have a moment. I enjoy reading them :)