Author's Chapter Notes:
My betas were their usual efficient and wonderful selves. Credit them for it not sucking, and blame any mistakes on my after-beta fiddling.
Chapter Thirteen


"Buffy? Buffy, can you understand me?"

Buffy looked around wildly, automatically holding up her fists to respond to another attack from the demon. The adrenaline pumping through her system prevented her from recognizing her surroundings at first, then, as she felt the pain in her arm, she tried to find the demon's skewer so she could pull it out. To her surprise, there was an IV in her arm, rather than the demon weapon she'd expected.

She had barely begun to understand where she was, when she was no longer there, finding herself sitting on a bench and talking to Spike about Xander's non-wedding. Somehow, their awkward - but unusually honest - conversation there had eliminated some of the tension between them, and she was tentatively feeling comfortable around him again. Comfortable enough to sit and talk to him about what had happened after he left the wedding.

She shook her head to rid it of the flashback-dream-hallucination that had come and gone so quickly.

The Scoobies arrived just as she began to feel woozy again, putting an end to the conversation. While Spike and Xander sniped at each other, she felt the world begin to swim around her. When Xander shoved Spike to the ground, her last thought as she dropped her head onto her knees was Something else that's my fault. I think they were getting along while I was dead.

~~~~~~~~

Buffy blinked her eyes and looked around, taking in the sterile white walls, the loose uniforms on the muscular men standing by and the worried look on the face of..."Dr Swinson?"

With an audible sigh of relief, the older woman straightened up and waved the attendants back.

"It's working," she said. "I think she'll be fine now."

They looked dubious, but nodded. "Just push the button if you need us," the taller one said.

"It'll be okay. Won't it, Buffy?"

Buffy blinked again and repeated, "Dr Swinson? Am I really here?"

"You are. You gave us quite a scare for a while there, but it looks like the drug has done its job."

Buffy plucked at the needle in her arm. "Can we take it out, then? It kind of hurts. And not in a good way."

"There's a good way to hurt?"

Sheer panic flew across Buffy's face as she realized what she'd said. "No! Of course not. I was just... just making a joke. Not a funny one, I guess."

The doctor stared at her hard, studying her face and eyes before nodding.

"I think we'll just leave it in for a while longer," she said. "Until we're sure we have you back completely."

Wincing, Buffy sat up in the bed and nodded with resignation. "Okay. I guess that's..." Her eyes widened. "How long was I gone this time?" Although her time in Sunnydale had only amounted to months, she braced herself for being told that she'd lost another five or six years of her life.

"Several months," Dr Swinson said. "You've missed the beginning of the spring semester of classes. I believe your employer is holding your job for you, although—"

"Will! Where's Will?" Her eyes flew to her bare left hand. "Is he still..."

"Madly in love with you?" The doctor gave her a wry smile. "I think you could safely say so. He's often here. He sits and talks to you, strokes your hand. I'm quite impressed, actually. I think most young men would have written you off by now."

"My parents..." Buffy looked around, noting that this sterile room bore little resemblance to the one she'd had before her release the last time.

Before the doctor could respond, Buffy felt herself slipping away.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She gave a strangled cry and glanced up to find Willow and Dawn hovering anxiously.

"Buffy? Are you okay? You keep losing consciousness on us. One minute you're here, then you're... gone... somewhere."

"Where do you go?" Dawn demanded. "When you're not here, where do you go?"

"B... back," Buffy whispered, her voice filled with pain. "I go back." She closed her eyes, but when she opened them again she was still in her own room in the house on Revello Drive, and Willow and Dawn were still staring at her. "What happened?" she asked, dropping her head back against the pillow.

"Do you remember being stabbed by the Nerds' demon?" They frowned at her when Buffy laughed softly and shook her head.

"I thought someone put an IV in my arm," she said, tears beginning to stream down her face. "I was in a mental hospital and this was all just a bad dream." She winced when she saw Dawn's face crumple. "I'm sorry, Dawnie. But there – in that place – this just seems... unreal."

"Well, it's real. Trust me," Willow said, her resolve face to the fore. "You got stabbed by that demon. Turns out there's a toxin in its skewer that causes hallucinations and fever. Spike and Xander are out looking for it now. As soon as they bring it in, I can break off the skewer and start making the antidote."

"And in the meantime?"

"We'll just try to keep you comfortable and safe, I guess." Willow's brow knit. "I'm not sure quite what to do when you go...away...on us. But you just sort of lie there with your eyes open, so I guess it's not hurting you."

Buffy gave another sad little laugh. "No," she said, "it's not hurting me."

~~~~~~~~

She awoke to find her mother's face drifting in and out of her vision.

"Mom? Mom? You're here? You're alive?" Buffy began to cry as her mother lay down beside her on the bed and held her.

"I'm here, honey. I'll always be here." Joyce was crying too, her tears mingling with Buffy's as she promised her they would move heaven and earth to see that she stayed with them.


~~~~~~~~~~~~


Buffy startled awake to find Spike lounging in the doorway. "Back are you?" he said calmly, although his fingers were digging into the woodwork framing the door.

"So it seems," she sighed, shifting and wincing at the pain in her swollen arm. "Did you guys find the demon?"

"Yeah, we got it. Got the bugger chained up in the basement. Seems he has to be alive when Red does her mojo or it might backfire."

The last time Buffy could remember speaking with Spike, it was in the cemetery just before she passed out from the poison. She had a vague memory of hearing him suggest ice on the back of her neck before Xander and Willow had pulled her away and she'd lost consciousness. With newly aware eyes she studied him, comparing him to Will and wondering briefly which one was real and which one had inspired the other.

There was no denying it. For all that one was human and one was an old vampire, they were the same man. The same warm blue eyes with which Will gazed at her so fondly were now looking at her, a worried frown just beginning to appear above them.

"Buffy? Slayer?"

Startled out of her musing, Buffy blurted out, "You know, if you were human, I think I could love you."

Spike gaped at her, his astonishment exceeded only by her own. She clapped a hand over her mouth. "I didn't mean—"

"No!" he growled, crossing the distance from the door with inhuman speed. "You don't get to say something like that and then take it back. What the bloody fuck is going on?"

"I wish I knew," she whispered, unable to stop herself from stroking his face and closing her eyes against the pain she could read there. "I don't know what's real anymore."

"Know that, pet," he said, pressing her palm to his check with a trembling hand. "That's the poison at work. Soon's the witch gets that antidote, you'll be all fixed and you'll know which end is what again."

"What if I don't want to? What if I'd rather stay... gone?"

He stared at her, his fear palpable. "Gone where? Where is this place that you'd rather be than here with your friends, with us?" Memory kicked in. "Are you... are you back in Heaven?"

Buffy shook her head. "Not in the way you mean it, no. But it feels like Heaven. I'm loved and cared for and--"

"You're loved here," he snapped, adding when she flinched, "and I don't mean me. I mean the Bit. Your friends. Your missing watcher. Even the big poof still loves you – just not quite as much as he loves the idea of his redemption, but..." He shook himself. "We all love you, Buffy. How can you feel loved in that world without any of us?"

Buffy looked into his genuinely grief-stricken eyes and whispered, "You're there. And...and Angel is there... sort of." She ignored his muttered, "Sort of?" and continued, "And my mom and dad are there. Together. It's... it's nice, Spike. I have a normal life, a family – minus the green glowing ball of energy that moved in here last year. I have a boyfriend—"

His snarl caught her by surprise.

"Not Angel," she said with a tired sigh. "It's you. Except... not. You're human, and you don't bleach your hair, and you don't mind that I was – am crazy." She could see that she'd lost him at "boyfriend" and "you", and dropped her head back onto the pillow.

"I'm happy there, Spike," she sighed. "I'm normal and happy and I just got engaged when they yanked me back here."

"Why didn't you tell someone – me – all this before?"

"I didn't remember any of it. All I remembered was that I felt safe and warm and loved... and done. I'd done my job and gone to my reward. And then, bam! I went to sleep in the arms of my lover—" She had to pause and gulp when he couldn't hide his wince. "And I woke up in a coffin, under six feet of dirt."

"Jesus Christ," he whispered. "No wonder you hate it here. You were in Heaven. Your version of it, anyway. Where I'm not... " He gave a snort of bitter laughter. "... not... me." Buffy cringed at the anguish on his face as he straightened up and stared down at her.

"Hey, evil undead! Get away from her. You've done your part. We got the demon. No more need for vampire muscles, so you can leave now." Xander's voice was mostly serious as he took in the scene in front of him. Buffy and Spike were staring at each other with damp eyes and sad resignation on their faces. Before Xander could ask them what was going on, Willow appeared behind him to say that she thought she was ready to work on the antidote.

Spike leaned in and stroked Buffy's cheek, ignoring Xander's "Hey!" and Willow's gasp.

"You need to tell them, love. Tell them where you were – where you go."

He whirled and brushed past the two people in the doorway, going outside and walking blindly for miles before turning around and heading back to the house.





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