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Chapter Two

St. David’s Hospital LA


Helen sat with the patient for a couple of hours, reluctant to go home to another of her parents’ get togethers. God, she hated them, hence the sitting at the bedside of a stranger. Too many people crammed into the apartment, too much noise, drink, too much everything! It was much better to keep out of the way.

As she sat she chatted away, telling the patient what she’d been doing that day and of her plans for the next weekend, (planning) which were to spend her days off at the beach enjoying the sun.

“Sun” The word resonated in the patients mind. For some reason it brought fear.

The monitor’s beeping increased in speed. Helen glanced across and noticed that his heart rate had fluctuated. She watched it settle down again.

“What was that about?” Helen asked the patient. “If you want to wake up you’re going to have to do a bit better than that.”

She took his right hand in hers, like she had so many times, to give a little squeeze as she stood to leave. This time though, as she let go, his hand didn’t fall back to the bed. It held on! It was a weak but definite grip.

“Oh my God,” whispered Helen, staring at their hands. She squeezed her fingers again and this time the pressure returned was a little stronger. She was torn between getting a doctor and staying with him. Staying won. How could she leave him now if he were to wake up? Plus at midnight doctors were pretty hard to find.

She sat back with a thump into her chair, scanning the monitors and the patient’s face for further signs. The fingers of his left hand moved, tentatively at first, then clenched into a fist, his body becoming tense.

“It’s ok, you’re safe. You’re alright,” Helen crooned as if reassuring a baby. “I’m here, you’re not alone.”

He unclenched his fist and slowly, with effort, lifted his hand to his face, the fingers touching the scar on his forehead.

He opened his eyes. They looked grey and unfocussed but then cleared to a vivid blue and met the young nurse’s gaze for the first time.

“Welcome back.” She smiled, the corners of her brown eyes crinkling. “I think I’d better go get the doctor now.”

She released his hand. His eyes followed her as she went round the bottom of the bed.

“Won’t be long, don’t worry,” she said.

He opened his mouth to speak but all that came out was a croak.

“Don’t try to speak - it’s just the lack of use. You’ve been sleeping for quite a while.”

He slightly shook his head, licked his lips and then tried again.

“Helen.” It was a whisper of a whisper but he was rewarded with another lovely smile before Helen hurried off to call the doctor.

oooooooo

When Helen returned the patient was gazing at the monitors, hand over his heart, face troubled.

“The doctor will be here soon. Can you tell me your name now? I’ve known you quite a while without it.”

He looked up at her.

“What……..? How……….? Angel………?” he managed to speak, the words barely formed.

Helen smiled down at him and took his hand in hers. Patients were often confused after waking from a coma. It wasn’t the first time she’d been called an angel.

“It’s been nearly three months since you were brought in on the night of the catastrophe the other side of town. Do you remember any of what happened to you before the wall fell on you?”

At her words a violent shudder went through the man lying on the bed. He tried to rise.

“Others…….got…….help……..Angel……….Illyria……….where are they?”

“Easy, easy. Calm down.” Helen soothed, laying a hand on the man’s shoulder. “Just try to relax. We’ll worry about the rest later.”

She stopped as the doctor arrived at the bedside. He was a huge man, his bulk disguising the delicate touch he had with his patients. With blond hair, fresh complexion and large hands he looked more suited to life on a farm than a city hospital. The doctor chatted away as he performed a few tests on the slight man.

“Gave us quite a scare you did. We didn’t think we were ever going to get your heart started again.”

The patient once more cast a troubled glance at the monitor indicating his pulse rate.

“What the hell is going on?” His mind was racing.“Why am I here? How am I here?”

The effort of trying to assimilate what had happened, where the others were, and why they kept going on about his heart, proved too much. With a relieved sigh he slipped back into unconsciousness.

Helen, alarmed, gripped his hand tightly.

“No! Stay with us!” she pleaded.

The doctor put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

“It’s okay, Helen. He’s just fallen asleep, not back into a coma. It’s amazing how tiring a coma can be. It’s always a bit of a shock for them when they wake up.” He smiled at the nurse, secretly wishing she’d look at him the way she looked at the patient. “He’ll make more sense when he wakes up, I’m sure. Now go home and get some rest. You’ve been here nearly all night.”

“But…….”

“No, Helen, go. He’ll still be here when you get back on duty this evening and we do have other nurses here, you know. He’ll be cared for.”

With a backward look at ‘her’ patient Helen agreed to leave. It made sense after all. She still didn’t know his name but she felt she soon would.

Oooooooo

This time the patient’s sleep wasn’t dark, quiet and peaceful. It was wracked with dreams. Memories. He knew they were memories. Images flashed through his mind. Images of him attacking countless people, blood running down his chin as he feasted, laughing at their screams for mercy, biting harder and harder!

“Who do you kill for fun around here? I’m Spike.” Words he’d spoken to another he’d killed when asked his name. Killed despite being one of his own kind……a vampire!

Vampire. Spike tossed and turned in his sleep.

“Vampire,” he groaned aloud.

A passing nurse paused at his bed watching as the patient moved restlessly, a sheen of sweat on his brow. She didn’t hear his words.

New images flashed - images of a girl, beautiful with blonde hair falling to her shoulders, looking at him at first with desire and then with contempt.

“And you wonder why I could never trust you?”

“Oh God!” moaned Spike, face contorting at the memory.

The nurse bent closer to hear what he was saying.

“Rape……..I tried……Buffy….no, oh God no…..”

The nurse stood up alarmed at what she’d heard.

“Helen’s golden boy looks like he may not be as golden as she thought,” she said to herself, having seen the young nurse often at his bedside. She made a mental note to tell the doctor what she’d heard, and walked away.

More images crashed into his mind. A demon placing his hand on Spike’s chest, and the feel of pain coursing through his body.

“I shall return your soul!”

Spike tensed on the bed as he recalled the moment he became one of only two vampires in history to have a soul. One he’d sought and fought for to try to right the wrong he’d done to Buffy.

“Buffy,” he whispered.

Then holding hands with her, his whole being glowing, hands aflame as the amulet released its power.

“I love you.”

Words he’d wanted and hoped to hear for so long but still he couldn’t stop. He couldn’t leave with her – he had to finish it off. Close the Sunnydale Hellmouth once and for all, then maybe his soul wouldn’t sear with the blood of all the people he’d killed, maybe…..

The images jumped again as he saw his time as a ghost trapped at Wolfram & Hart. The box of ‘flashy’ he received in the mail, making him corporeal again.

The war he, Angel, and the others waged against the evil of Wolfram & Hart’s senior partners. The fight, that epic fight. Seeing Gunn fall at his side, almost cut in two by a wickedly sharp axe. Wesley - dead. Illyria - dead. Angel - dust.

“Too much, too much,” said Spike as he writhed on the bed, hands to his head, fingers clutching his hair. “How the hell have I survived?” he wondered, “or have I? Was this another holding dimension of Wolfram & Hart? In humans they ripped out your heart. Perhaps in vampires they made it beat again?”

He drew his legs up into his chest and stayed curled up, hands entwined in his hair, as he sobbed in his sleep for the loss of his friends and in fear of his future.





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