Chapter Thirteen
November 2010
He sat up suddenly, his heart pounding loudly in his ears. A beeping noise invaded his ears, annoying in its intensity. His mind raced as he tried to work out where he was, who he was, why he was.
The room he was in was dark, but a bright light filtered in through half-closed blinds. Looking around revealed that it was a spartan, bare place, and that he was lying in a bed. There was a machine with lots of complicated looking buttons on it, and it was from this that the beeping emanated. A hospital, then.
In one corner a man sat slumped on a chair, snoring lightly, a coat draped around his shoulders.
He closed his eyes and tried to understand what was going on. Two deep breaths later and he had a name—William! Or… wait. Was he William? Wasn’t he sometimes called something else?
It was frustrating not to be able to remember one’s own identity, or why one was in the hospital. The man in the corner snuffled and the coat draped across his form fell to the floor. William—or whoever he was—watched as the other man came awake slowly, stretching and standing up.
“Spike! My God, you’re awake!” The man sounded English, his accent rich and cultured. “We should fetch a doctor.”
Spike. With this, everything unlocked and fell into place. Memory returned in a sudden tidal wave of information.
He was Spike. He was William. He saw everything and understood nothing. He remembered his life as William Pratt: his father’s death, his mother’s illness, leaving for the island, meeting Elizabeth. With heartbreaking clarity he saw himself held in her arms as she talked of a beautiful future. He felt himself die.
At the same time he recalled everything about Spike that had brought him to this moment, but most especially Buffy. He didn’t question for a moment whether what he remembered was real or not. It felt real and that was all that mattered.
He stared at the other man, knowing now that he was his brother Wesley.
“Wes. Buffy, where is she? Is she okay?” He had the horrible feeling that something had happened to her.
“She’s been in the same predicament as you,” Wesley replied. He moved towards the side of the bed and helped Spike to sit up. “Quite extraordinary that you both fell into a coma at the same time. The doctors were at a loss to explain it. Spike, I really should call for a doctor.”
“She’s here then?” Spike said, ignoring his brother’s last words. “In the hospital?”
“Yes. Just down the hallway.” When Spike leapt shakily from the bed, uncaring of how the heart monitor pulled from his skin, or how his legs wobbled from lack of use, Wesley made a move to stop him.
Spike found a robe hanging on the back of the door and wrapped it around himself to save his dignity in the open-backed gown, before leaving the room and blinking into the bright light of the corridor.
“This way.” Wesley was behind him and directed him to the right room.
Peering in through the window, Spike saw Buffy lying in a hospital bed. She looked small and pale, her blonde hair a halo on the pillow. She was alone in the room, and he pushed the door open quietly. He went to the edge of the bed and sat down on the mattress next to her. He took her hand and brushed his thumb over her soft skin. “Has she had any visitors?”
“Yes. Her family came as soon as they heard.” Wesley came all the way into the room and shut the door behind him. “What happened Spike? What caused this?”
“I wish I knew,” Spike replied. He stared at Buffy and wondered if she had experienced the same thing he had—if she had fallen into this coma and lived out her life in another time and whether she would remember Elizabeth and William when she woke up.
A thought occurred to him and he turned to Wesley, one eyebrow raised. “Where’s Dru?”
“Dru?” Wesley frowned. “Dru who?”
“Drusilla? Our sister.” Spike stood up, setting Buffy’s hand gently on the covers. He leaned over and kissed her softly on the cheek, before indicating to Wes that they should leave the room. He led the way back to his own hospital room, where he sat down on the bed. “Seriously Wes, where is she?”
“I don’t know whom you’re talking about,” Wesley replied, and a cold shiver wound its way down Spike’s spine. “I don’t know and have never known a Drusilla.”
“But I—” Spike broke off. He remembered his sister with absolute clarity. Dark-haired and slim, wide-eyed at every new discovery. A little crazy, but he loved her that way. “My stuff. My wallet, clothes. Where are they?”
“In there.” Wesley pointed to the cupboard next to his bed. “But Spike—”
“Shh.” Spike opened his wallet to the back where he kept pictures of his family. There was the one of his mother and father; another of Wesley, looking awkward as he posed, but his photos of Drusilla had disappeared. The picture of all three siblings now only showed Wes and himself, smiling for the camera. “I don’t understand. Wesley, we had a sister. We did.”
“Perhaps you’d better get some rest,” Wesley replied. “I’ll fetch the doctor. I should have done that when you first woke up.”
“I don’t need rest!” Spike stood up and ran a hand through his hair. “I’ve been resting for how long already?”
“Two weeks.”
“Two weeks! Two weeks and I’ve lived a whole lifetime. I’ve lived and I’ve loved and I’ve died. I died, Wesley!” He laughed. “How many people can say that? Who else can say they know what death feels like?” He sobered suddenly and sat back down on the bed, burying his face in his hands. “I left Elizabeth behind, and God knows what happened to her. What’s happening to her right now because I’m awake and she’s not. She should be awake! I need… I need books. And records.” He frowned, something niggling the corners of his memory. “Simkins! Has he been here? I need to talk to him.”
“You’re not making any sense,” Wesley said. “I’ll call the doctor.”
“I need to talk to Simkins.” Spike insisted again.
“I don’t understand—”
“No, you bloody well don’t understand. Something happened to me, Wes, and he’s the only one I can think of who might be able to help me. So get him, okay?”
Wesley backed up, his hands held out in a gesture of retreat. “All right. I’ll call him. But first, I’m fetching a doctor or nurse. God knows what’s taking them so long.”
Spike nodded and lay back against the pillows, trying to make sense of things. It was a strange feeling, being two persons at once. He was William and he was Spike, but they were both part of him. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to stop thinking, but it was futile; the questions raced around his head nevertheless. Where was Drusilla? If he and Buffy were somehow linked so that they would fall into a coma at the same time and share a past life together, why hadn’t she woken at the same time as he had?
He groaned. Nothing made sense.
The door creaked open and Wesley stepped through, a white-coated doctor hot on his heels.
“Mr. Price, it’s good to see you awake.” The doctor smiled and came to stand at the foot of the bed.
Spike frowned for a moment, wondering why he was being addressed as Price and not Pratt, before remembering he was Mr. Price in this lifetime. He sighed and submitted to the doctor’s examination, remembering in his mind’s eye all the times he had had to put up with Sister Maclay’s prodding and poking, back in the Ventnor hospital.
“Everything seems fine,” the doctor said eventually. “You were a most curious case, Mr. Price. No prior illness, nothing that indicated why you had fallen into the coma. The symptoms you were suffering from when you were brought in disappeared after a couple of days. And now you’re awake, there’s still nothing to say why it happened. Most curious indeed. Well, we’ll keep you in overnight for observation but I see no reason why you can’t be discharged tomorrow morning.”
Spike nodded and Wesley thanked the doctor. As soon as she had left the room, Spike turned to his brother. “Did you call Simkins?”
“Yes, I did.” Wesley sighed. “I really wish you’d tell me why you need to talk to the leader of the local paranormal society.”
“Because he’s the bloody leader of the local paranormal society,” Spike said. “Look, I’ll tell you everything when he gets here. Don’t really fancy explaining twice.”
“All right.” Wesley seemed resigned. “Are you hungry?”
“Think I am, actually, yeah.”
***
The beep-beep-beep of the machine was annoying but it gave Spike something other than his thoughts to focus on.
A nurse had been by and had tried to get him to go back into his own room, but he’d stubbornly refused, clinging onto Buffy’s hand as though it were a lifeline. She looked so still, so peaceful. He wondered if she was reliving her past life as he had done. If she was lost in the past at that very moment, mourning William’s death.
It felt strange to refer to that part of himself as a separate entity, for William was now very much a part of Spike. He was both persons at once: the Victorian gentleman and the English teacher with an affinity for punk rock.
Simkins had said that kind of regression wasn’t a common phenomenon, but it had been known to happen before. When Spike had explained everything, Simkins had reacted with childlike glee—Wes with utter disbelief.
As Spike wove the tale of his past, he mentioned details that he would never have known had he not been there—names and places long since written out of history. Simkins had become even more excited when Spike had revealed William’s full name, and the other man had promised to return the following day with enough evidence to convince even the most hardened of sceptics.
Spike was glad that Simkins at least had seemed to believe him; he’d accepted it all as fact and not as a delusion brought on by the coma. Wesley seemed more inclined to believe it was all made up, and there was some small part of Spike that thought it all a fanciful daydream, too.
Sighing, he tightened his grip on Buffy’s hand. She lay as still as ever, even when Spike brought her hand to his mouth and kissed it, keeping his lips pressed to her skin for several moments.
Releasing her hand to rest on the covers once more, he leaned back in the uncomfortable plastic chair and settled in for a long night of waiting.
***
Just as Spike was being discharged the following morning, Simkins returned to the hospital, a bag in his hand and an eager smile on his face.
“There’s a little café not far away,” Simkins said. “Perhaps we could go there to talk. It’s usually nice and quiet at this time of day.”
Spike frowned. “I dunno. I kind of wanted to hang around here for Buffy. And the doc said her family usually show up around midday. It’d be nice to meet them. To explain…”
Wes, who had been standing back and observing the conversation, suddenly spoke up. “Go on, Spike. You’ve got your phone; I’ll give you a ring when Buffy’s family turn up.”
Still unsure but needing to hear whatever it was that Simkins had discovered, Spike nodded. “All right. Call me as soon as they’re here, mind.”
Wesley nodded his head in agreement, and Spike let himself be ushered from the room. He followed Simkins down the hallway and out of the hospital, allowing the other man to lead him to the aforementioned café. It was tucked between a bookshop and a butcher and looked to be the kind of old-fashioned teashop that only seemed to exist in tiny villages or seaside towns.
A bell jangled as they entered, and a bespectacled woman greeted them with a smile and two menus. After ordering a pot of tea for two and a pair of rock cakes, Simkins levelled Spike with a shrewd look and reached into the bag he’d brought. He set a book onto the table and sat back triumphantly.
The book wasn’t anything out of the ordinary—a plainly bound journal, the pages warped and yellowed with age—but to Spike it spoke volumes. He reached out a shaking hand to touch it and, when his hand met the cover, he felt the last of the puzzle pieces click into place. “Bloody hell.” There was no doubt now that he had lived as William in the past, for this was his journal, the one he’d left behind at the hospital in his haste to leave. He remembered it vividly, recalled writing his soppy love poems and tearing out pages for his letters to Elizabeth.
“You recognise it, then?” Simkins took a sip of his tea and the rattle his cup made as it met the saucer sounded loud in the otherwise quiet tearoom.
“Yeah,” Spike said. “It was mine—uh, William’s. Where did you find it?”
“It’s been part of Carisbrooke Castle’s museum collection since 1934,” Simkins replied. “Donated upon the death of one Tara Maclay.”
“Elizabeth’s aunt.” William opened the book, careful not to tear the brittle pages within. There, on the first page, was Elizabeth’s first note to him. He traced the words lightly with the pads of his fingers, lost in the memories they invoked. He looked up at Simkins. “This is crazy. You know that, right?”
“But true,” Simkins said. He gestured to the journal with one hand. “Alison had planned to use that journal as the focus of her energy at the vigil, do you remember? The curator of the museum very kindly loans us artefacts every now and then. I believe that that, combined with being back at the hospital’s location is the cause of your regression.”
“And Buffy?”
Simkins shrugged. “Who knows? Divine intervention, perhaps. For you to fully understand the journey, she had to be there with you.”
“Why hasn’t she woken up yet?” Spike asked, turning the pages of William’s journal. He smiled when he came across the first of his poems.
“It’s obvious, surely?” Simkins said. “You woke up when your past life ended. She will undoubtedly do the same. I don’t think it will be too long.” He reached into his bag and pulled out a sheaf of papers, photocopies of old records and printed typeface. “I spent the better part of the night at the county record office, searching for any mention of Elizabeth Summers and William Pratt. Here,” he paused and handed Spike a sheet of paper. “I had to put in a call to the Metropolitan Archives for your death certificate. Twenty-eighth of November, 1888, in London.”
“Sounds about right,” Spike replied. “Don’t remember much of those last few days.”
“You’re not going to like the next part.” Simkins rifled through the papers and frowned. “How odd. I’m sure I made a copy…” He paged through the pile once more, and then again one further time. “Most peculiar.” He met Spike’s eyes from behind his thick-rimmed glasses. “I found Elizabeth’s marriage certificate, but it doesn’t appear to be here any more…”
“Marriage certificate?” Spike’s heart sank.
“Yes. It listed her as married to a Mr. Ethan Rayne on the fifteenth January, 1889, at Holy Trinity church in Bembridge.” Simkins flicked through the papers again. “I’m sure I made a copy of it.”
“She went back to the island, then,” Spike said, feeling numb. He’d wanted to find out what had happened to Elizabeth after William’s death, but now he almost wished he didn’t know. To think of her, his bright, beautiful girl, having to marry a man she detested… it made his heart ache. He swallowed down the last of his tea, uncaring that it was now cold. “Did you—did you find her death certificate?”
“I did,” Simkins replied. “But that seems to have gone walkabout, too. Nevermind. I have an excellent memory. It was almost a year after her marriage, on the 18th December, 1889. She died in childbirth, and the baby with her.”
“I—” Spike squeezed his eyes shut. He didn’t need to be a maths whiz to know that the dates didn’t add up. It hadn’t been William’s child, but he still felt its loss like a fresh wound. He stood up, his sudden movement upsetting the table slightly. “I need a moment. Excuse me.” It was cold outside, and the biting November wind whipped the tears from his face as soon as they appeared.
The facts with which Simkins had presented him were distant, impersonal dates, but each one told Spike a story of Elizabeth’s fate after William’s death. He didn’t need details to know what had happened; he could imagine each moment as though he had lived it himself.
Elizabeth would have been afraid and alone in London by herself. She wouldn’t have known anyone, wouldn’t have known what to do, even with the assets William had left for her. Perhaps she had seen returning to the island as the only option. Once there, she’d been forced by her parents to wed Ethan Rayne. It had been a loveless marriage, and Spike could only hope that the other man hadn’t been too cruel to her. And then, for her to die at such a young age and in such a harsh way… it was a heart-rending end to the tale.
Spike took a deep, shuddering breath to compose himself, before returning to the table inside the café. He had to try and look on the bright side. If Elizabeth’s death had been such a short time after William’s, then it wouldn’t be long before Buffy woke up, and they would be able to start again. Circumstance wouldn’t be against them this time.
Simkins had a deep frown on his face when Spike settled himself opposite. “I was just on the phone to my friend at the records office. There’s no trace at all of Elizabeth’s marriage and death certificates. They’ve gone.”
“Gone? Has someone else taken them?”
“No. Gone, as in disappeared completely,” Simkins said. “It’s as though they never existed.”
“I don’t understand.”
“No.” Simkins met his eyes, and Spike shivered. “Neither do I.”
***
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Thank you to everyone who read and reviewed the last chapter. We're back to the present with this one. Thanks as always to Sotia for beta-reading. Hope you enjoy!
Chapter End Notes:
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