Chapter 15
“Okay, I’ll do the best I can. I don’t know all of it yet because I still haven’t talked to her, but…She’s been not feeling so well over the past few weeks and I guess it was worse than I thought. She saw a doctor and I thought it was just a general doctor visit you know? But apparently it was an oncologist or something.
“I guess we would have found out today or tomorrow anyway because that’s when her MRI results were coming back…
“She wasn’t feeling too well tonight—and I was too wrapped up in feeling bad that I didn’t see it—“
“Buffy, quit it. There wasn’t anything for you to do. Just….just tell me what happened.”
“Dawn made us grilled cheese and tomato soup and I ate a little bit of it, you know, and Mom did too, then…She told us she wasn’t feeling very well and was just going to be so could we clean up the kitchen. We said of course, but Spike…it was only seven so…we were worried but I mean what do you do…we couldn’t call a doctor or anything, it was just our mother not feeling well and going to bed early.
“Dawn went upstairs to…She went in Mom’s room I guess,” Spike noticed the way she seemed to be jumping around in time but decided as long as he could follow it was okay. “She found Mom and…I ran up there because Dawnie just sounded so scared…and she’s been being careful not to make me do too much so…she wouldn’t have yelled for me if it wasn’t necessary…
“She was having a seizure—not Dawn, Mom,” Buffy needlessly clarified and Spike could smell her tears even if his coat prevented him from feeling them. “I didn’t want Dawnie in there because…she didn’t need to…she shouldn’t have had to see that and I wanted…I wanted her away as soon as possible so I…I told her I’d stay with Mom and asked her to call 911 and then Giles.
“It was hard Spike….and not just because I’m not st—not just because stuff’s harder for me now, but…I’m okay when it’s happening to someone else. When I don’t know who…when it’s someone else’s mother I can deal with it….I can…but it was my mom, Spike…Nothing’s supposed to happen to her. It’s just not!” Spike hugged her closer against him and she continued, “But I made sure to hold her so she wouldn’t hit anything or hurt herself and I…I just looked at it…just looked and…waited. As long as I wasn’t there…in my mind, then it could be okay…So I just waited for them. It was bad to leave her, I know, but I just couldn’t…
“They got here a little while later; I don’t really know how long. And did some stuff—I really don’t remember….I asked, I think, if I could go with them and I…I didn’t want Dawn to have to stay by herself, but…I told her to wait for Giles and I went with them…They did all of this stuff to her, Spike….they had to check all these things and then they gave her this shot of something and…I’m supposed to be able to protect everyone Spike and I couldn’t help her.
“Then they took her into…they took her and I waited for Dawn and everybody to get there….Then the doctor…he came to tell me what was wrong. He said Mom wanted him to tell me because they’d given her a medicine that was making her sleepy but she wanted me to know so we could talk in the morning. He told me what was wrong and gave me stuff about it and...
“I told Dawnie what he told me; or at least I tried to. I think I might have forgotten some stuff or said some of it wrong, but I tried…
“I wanted to leave, but…they told me I had to stay there. I didn’t want them to…I waited until we were up on another floor, the floor her room is on, and when they all went to do something and Dawn was asleep, I left. I just couldn’t think in there. I was supposed to decide all of this stuff about…that could affect if my mom lives or…and I couldn’t do it in there.”
“Buffy, sweetheart, what did the doctor say?”
“Oh,” she blushed, “I guess I didn’t actually say all that did I?” He waited as she took a few deep breaths before starting, “They said that she has a tumor in her brain, but they’re not sure if it’s cancerous or not. But it doesn’t really matter, I guess, because of where it is. They have to get rid of it either way and that’s part of what I have, I think, to help her decide. They can either do a surgery, that’s more likely to get rid of it, but also kind of dangerous or they can do….radiation which might not work as well. And, uh, if they do the surgery, then they might have to do the radiation too.
“And none of it’s guaranteed even then,” she said sadly. “I forget all the percents he told me, but, Spike…there’s a chance my mom could die.”
“Shh, don’t think like that, kitten. Did they say when they would do the surgery if that’s what you all decide?”
“They have to get rid of her pneumonia before they can because it would add…it’d be extra dangerous somehow if they didn’t but after that…they want to do it as soon as possible.”
“Did they have the MRI’s to show you?” he sounded serious, but still compassionate and Buffy wondered briefly why he was the one taking the most action in this. It wasn’t because he cared for her mother any less, he knew that….Actually maybe it was because he cared more.
“They, uhm…I don’t remember if they said they had them back or they were going to get them back soon. Why?”
“Because, luv, you can get copies of them and, whatever the doctors there say about what to do, you can get some doctors in…Los Angeles maybe, to look at them, too.”
“Why?” she was too tired to be thinking clearly.
“Sometimes, luv, doctors have different opinions on what has to be done and with something this serious, it’d be good to get a second opinion. You might even be able to get them to send it to LA for you.”
”They wouldn’t be mad?”
“Most docs know you’re going to do it anyway. ‘Sides, pet, they don’t want your mum to die any more than you do. If it turns out they’re wrong, I’m sure they’d rather know now rather than after.”
“Yeah that…that makes sense. I’ll ask them when I go back…Do I have to know the doctor’s name?”
“Don’t have to, but you could always have Peaches cal one up, I’m sure he knows someone.”
“I don’t…I’ll have to go find the number for his hotel.”
“He’s not here?”
“No,” Buffy said slowly, “Why would he be?”
“Never mind,” Spike chose to drop the subject rather than bring up the fact that she still loved the poof. “I think I might know a bloke who could get them looked at for you. He’s a friend of that doc that tried to get my chip out. But a white hat and all that rot.”
“Would you come to the hospital with me?”
“What?” that was unexpected.
“I…I don’t know if I can remember all of this and…I don’t want Mom to get hurt because I forget something.”
“You figure a way to keep me from burning up and I’ll go.”
“Thank you.”
“Course pet.”
They sat for several more minutes before he asked what he’d been wondering since she came into his crypt.
“What’s got you so scared?”
“I just told you my mom has a—“
“It’s something other than that. Every time you bring up leaving Dawn alone—See you’re doing it even now. You tense up every time you talk about her being alone. And…if it was just your Mum the Scoobies’d be enough for you…but you had to come yell at me. You only really yell at me like that, if I haven’t done something, if something’s really got you.”
Buffy thought for a moment about denying everything, but knew in the end it would be pointless so…really, what was the point?
“My mom went to a doctor because mystical stuff doesn’t happen to her, you know? I get sick and everyone’s researching it…I still haven’t seen a doctor Spike and its been weeks of me not getting better. What if the same thing’s wrong with me and…and I’m waiting too long to find out,” Spike had to strain to hear her by the end.
“Buffy, luv. What’s wrong with your mum is not wrong with you.”
“But how could you know? You didn’t know that it was wrong with her so how do you know it’s not what’s wrong with me?”
“I’ve got a theory, pet.”
TBC.....
and thank you for the nominations for Silently Broken at the Lost in Spike Awards--and for the best author nominations :-D
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Author's Chapter Notes:
I'm so, so, so sorry that I haven't updated in so long...It was only ast week that everything from the holidays finally got back to normal with everyone in their correct homes ;) Then on Monday we got a puppy (we'd thought it was going to be later) so between watcfhing to make sure she doesn't eat electrical cords and making sure she doesn't drive my bigger dog to bite her at all I haven't had time to update (or write sadly ).....