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Chapter 20- Paradise of The Lost and Found

Spike had been out cold for exactly one week. He woke up groggy from medication and still wasn’t able to feel anything below his waist. Even with a ready supply of blood it could be a couple of months before his body had completely repaired the damage to his spine, along with the multitude of broken ribs, two of which had each punctured a lung.

His first gasps of air came out in wheezes and he coughed up a little blood, his head falling back onto the pillow. In just lifting his head he had overexerted his lungs.

“Easy fella, you still won’t be doing much for the next day or two. Good to have you back though. Don’t try to talk you’ll only make it worse.” Fred was her usual self making notes in Spike’s chart and peering at a machine through her glasses. She turned and smiled at him when he tried to talk, putting her finger over his lips.

“I’m going to give you something so that you can sleep. Have pleasant dreams.” Fred took out a wicked looking needle and inserted it into the blood that was dripping into a vein in his arm.

Before Spike even had a chance to protest his eyes were drooping off to sleep never even noticing Dawn laying beside him asleep in a cot that had been brought in a magazine haven fallen out of her hand and onto the floor.

Pulling up Spike’s blanket over his chest Fred tucked him in, giving him a friendly peck on the forehead before running her fingers through his growing curls. He was going to have to color it again soon, maybe Dawn could do it for him once he was better.

It was strange that she would feel almost motherly to a vampire that was old enough to be her descent a century and a half removed of course. He just brought out a maternal side in her that made her want to protect him from harm. Dawn seemed to do the same thing to her.

Picking up an extra blanket out of the closet she went over to Dawn, tucking her in and again bestowing a kiss on the head. She would be fine until morning when Fred would do her round on her patients again.

Turning off the light Fred gently closed the door behind her and soundlessly traveled across the hall to check to see her other patient.

Monitors tapped out a steady tattoo in the room. The heart monitor showed a strong slow never changing rhythm, and the breathing machine made it’s constant whoosh with air. IV’s dripped different fluids through tubes that traveled through veins in two separate arms that looked even paler than Spike and Angel’s if that was possible.

Fred took out the chart and looked it over out of habit. Nothing had changed, everything was exactly normal. Turning on the x-ray light, she studied the cat scan pictures that had been taken of her patients brain, just in case she missed something that she hadn’t seen in the previous days when she had once again poured over them. She didn’t care if she had to stare at them every day for hours on end she would find the cause and the cure, it was what she did, what she lived for, helping people that needed her and right now there were two people that needed her more than anyone, even Wesley who had finally admitted that he loved her.

Luckily for Fred, Wesley understood and was right with her with her fight. He poured over every book that he could find searching for a mystical cure. Fred prayed that soon they would find one, they weren’t able to find one for Cordelia but maybe they would now.

She turned around when she heard the door open silently. Smiling at Angel as he stepped into the room.

“How’s the patient today.” Angel tried to sound chipper even though his heart broke just a little more every day. It wasn’t fair to have Cordelia in this position, yet alone having someone else he cared about here.

“Same as usual. Have you seen Spike yet?” Fred stood in front of him trying hard to look past the pain she saw in his eyes. If she looked at it she knew she would cry and she couldn’t do that now. She had to be strong..

“Yeah, sleeping like the big baby he is. Has he waken up yet?” Angel just stood there trying hard to not look at the figure lying in the bed not more than a few feet away.

“He did for a moment, but I gave him something to make him sleep. That gives you about twenty four hours to come up with an answer for his question.” Fred looked him square in the eye and dared him to make a crack about what question.

“I figured, but how do I tell him, that the woman he loves is in such a deep coma, that like Cordy may never wake up from. How do I tell him how to survive and understand something that even I don’t. To look on himself, he that has immortality and just watch as she dies.” Angel ran his hand through his hair and walked to the window staring out on the city.

“You tell him that we’re all here for him. That Dawn is still here and won’t leave his side, just as none of us left yours. Use that bond to bring you two closer, you were never friends, and never really enemies or you would have killed each other way before now. You teach each other what it means to have a family that loves you, even if we all are only mortal. To cherish every day and not to waste a single moment, because none of us are truly immortal and yet we all are when our spirits last forever.”

Fred stood beside him understanding his pain and confusion. They were family, all of them, even Spike and now including Dawn. They would stick together, it’s what they always did.

Fred left the room closing the door behind her, knowing that Angel would sit beside for awhile talking to someone who just like Cordy may or may not hear a word that he spoke.

“What am I going to tell him tomorrow, when he wonders how you are and where you are. You know he’s going to ask and he’s going to fight and throw things. I guess I’ll deal with it all tomorrow, what can he do to me anyway, run over my toes with his wheelchair. But undoubtedly he will never leave your side, we’ll probably have to put another bed in here too. Knowing Spike he’ll want to knock down some walls and make an apartment surrounding you so that he and Dawn could be more comfortable.” Smirking at the last statement Angel sat down and pictured his childe trying to get him to give into the idea.

Angel just sat there, looking and listening until it was almost dawn. Sitting up he bent and placed a kiss on a smooth brow, hoping how soon he would be able to look into the face and see it’s eyes twinkle and its mouth laugh and talk.

“Good night, Buffy. Pleasant dreams.”





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