One minute she had been smiling up at him and the next she had
collapsed in his arms babbling about the book, her girlfriend, Giles,
and an anchor. Her heart stopped beating. Willow's heart stopped
beating. Angel had heard its last thump. A searing pain burned his
chest. "Willow!" he screamed. He shook her limp body more forcefully
than he should have.
"No!" Angel heard Buffy's voice, but barely felt it when she pushed
him away from Willow. "No, she's not going to die. Willow, you are
not going to die."
"She's dead." Angel crept closer to the two girls. Buffy was feeling
for a pulse. She laid her head on Willow's chest. "She's dead," he
repeated numbly. She was alive and now she was dead.
Buffy looked up, her eyes blazing into his. "No. Dawn, call nine-one-
one, tell them we have an unconscious female with no pulse at Brierly
Funeral Home. Wait for them and bring them back here." Buffy watched
as Dawn took off and then turned her attention back to Willow. She
was not going to die. She wasn't going to lose someone else she loved.
Buffy tilted Willow's head, pinched her nostrils and delivered two
breaths into her best friend's inert lungs. With no response, she
started CPR compressions. She tuned everything else out - she didn't
know what Spike and Angel were doing - her whole world was two breaths,
five chest compressions, until finally a paramedic pulled her away.
Her instinctive protective reaction was to knock him away, but she felt
Spike's cool hands close over her arms as he moved her away.
"It's okay, Slayer, they're here to help." He hugged her to him.
"Your job is over now. Let them do theirs."
It seemed to take forever. Time was moving in a horrendously slow
motion. Buffy had to turn her head into Spike's chest when they
brought out the defibulator and started to shock Willow with the
paddles. "I've got a pulse," finally one of them shouted. "Let's move
her into the wagon."
They were going to take Willow away. Angel stepped forward as she was
put onto the stretcher. He clasped one of her small limp hands in his.
"I'm going with her." He was never going to let her go again.
"Angel." Buffy stepped forward to protest. She was Willow's best
friend, she should stay with her. She was about to bring this little
fact up when she noticed Angel's eyes. He was terrified. They
followed the stretcher as it rolled toward the front doors.
"Let him go." Spike took her arm once again. "We'll meet them there."
"Is Willow going to be okay?" Dawn's voice was small and she trembled
with grief and exhaustion. She hugged herself to her sister's side.
"She'll be fine, Dawn," Buffy assured her. She watched as Willow was
loaded into the ambulance and Angel jumped in after her. The doors
were closed and the vehicle roared away into the night with sirens
blaring. "Willow can't die. Too many people love her." Some more
than they realized.
*****
The ambulance was a small, self-contained flurry of activity. Angel
sat at Willow's side, holding her hand and concentrating on her face,
willing her to wake up. The paramedic on her other side kept track of
her pulse, beeping on the heart monitor, and continued to force air
into her lungs with a balloon-like pump. It had AMBU-BAG embalzoned
on its side in dark red letters. Willow's heart was beating, but she
still wasn't breathing on her own. Angel didn't want to contemplate
what that meant. Absently he brushed a lock of fiery red hair from her
eyes. His thumb returned to caress her brow. Not breathing meant a
respirator. Respirators could be turned off. This thought stayed with
him as they screeched to a halt in the ambulance bay and still
thundered in his brain as they tore Willow's hand from his and wheeled
her through a set of swinging doors.
"Sir, are you with that young lady who just came in?" a pretty, middle
aged nurse asked. She smiled that gentle 'everything will be okay'
smile that people in her profession have perfected. "We need some of
her information." Angel went with the nurse over to the admitting
desk and told her what he could. While he was doing that, he also told
her a few things that laid the groundwork for his plan to protect
Willow. It wasn't going to make anyone happy, Buffy and Xander would
be furious - not to mention Willow's girlfriend - but Angel didn't
care. After speaking with the nurse, he dug out his cell phone to call
someone who could come up with the proper documentation to verify his
lies.
"Angel!" Buffy ran up to him just as he was finishing his call. "How's
Willow? Did you just call Giles and Xander?"
"No, I didn't think to call them. They just took Willow in there a
few minutes ago. They haven't told me anything yet." Angel gestured
at the doors down the hall. He sat down in the chair nearest the
doors to wait.
Buffy paced back and forth in front of Angel. "I'll go call them."
She started to head to the bank of payphones, but Spike stepped in
front of her.
"I don't think that's a good idea, Pet, considerin' the last time Giles
and Xander saw you, you were dead 'n' all." Spike walked over and
picked up the receiver of a payphone. "I'll call."
Buffy resumed her pacing. Dawn curled up in a chair beside Angel. She
reached over and held his hand, squeezing it tightly. There was no
evil to fight, no demon or hell goddess to kill, all they could do was
sit...and wait...and hope...and pray. Not things that any of them were
good at.
*****
Buffy and Spike were making Dawn dizzy. One paced one way and the
other paced the other way. Angel was making her worried. He just
stared at the door and didn't say a word. Dawn rested her head on his
shoulder. She wanted to cry, but she couldn't. She had shed too many
tears in the last twenty-four hours - tears of fear from being captured
by Glory and tears of grief for her sister - there weren't any left for
Willow. Besides, Buffy had said that Willow wouldn't die and Buffy
never lied. And Angel wouldn't let Willow go without a fight. "We
didn't hurt her, did we, Angel?"
"You didn't do anything, Dawn, except help bring your sister back."
Angel couldn't tear his eyes from the doors. He had this irrational
fear that if he looked away, Willow would die. It was his fault, he
had hurt her when he had broken the connection between Dawn and Willow.
He now knew what had bothered him when Willow had assured them that
breaking the connection wouldn't effect Buffy or the spell - she hadn't
included herself. He could hear her heartbeat. It was strong. That
was good. He would concentrate on that.
"It wasn't your fault either, Angel. Willow didn't tell us it would
hurt her." Dawn squeezed his hand again. She had always been
perceptive for her age. At least, that's the way he remembered it,
thanks to the monks who had created her. It was weird, but he hadn't
actually known Dawn, his memories of her were a fiction created to
protect her. But still, Angel felt a connection to Dawn - because of
their love for Buffy and now over their shared guilt for Willow.
It was his fault. He should have known that Willow was keeping
something from him. He had known, but hadn't let himself see it until
it was too late. Had he unintentionally sacrificed Willow for Buffy?
If it was possible, Angel actually got paler. Buffy cast him a worried
glance, but didn't say anything to him. She could see Dawn talking
quietly to him, but he was ignoring the young girl. Angel was in a
full-blown guilt brood and Buffy knew better than to interrupt it.
The only thing that would snap Angel out of it was Willow walking
through the doors to tell them she was fine. But that wasn't going to
happen. Willow had died bringing her back to life. Buffy wiped the
tears from her cheeks with an impatient swipe of her hand. She didn't
feel worthy of receiving that much love. Sure, she saved the world,
but when it came to the people that mattered the most - the people she
loved - she couldn't do anything except pace a hospital corridor and
wait for a doctor to tell her everything was alright only to have
things not alright and someone she loved dead.
This was tearing his unbeating heart out. Spike reached out and
stilled the Slayer's frantic pacing. He pulled her into his arms and
he could feel her tears wet his shirt. He could hear her heart
pounding and the blood rushing through her veins, and for the first
time in a long time the sound didn't just make him feel hungry. Spike
wanted to spout sappy love poetry, something he hadn't done since the
night Drusilla had turned him. He wanted to immortalize forever how
he felt about his beautiful warrior goddess. He hugged Buffy closer,
knowing that the only reason why she was letting him was because she
was emotionally overwrought and The Poof seemed to be in some sort of
grief-stricken brood coma. He had known that his grandsire had been
soft on the witch, he had been as frantic as Buffy to find her that
time he had kidnaped her and the moron. He had also been
conveniently present whenever Red had needed her life saved. Spike
wasn't stupid, even though the brooding Nancy-vamp was. He was just
glad that Angel seemed to have lost all the designs on the Slayer
that he had harbored for so long.
"Willow can't die," Buffy whispered brokenly into his chest. Spike
looked down at her blonde hair shining dully in the fluorescent glow of
the overhead lights. For her sake, he hoped that the little witch did
pull through. He liked Red well enough - had nothing against her
really, and out of all of the Slayer's groupies, she would be the last
one he would kill - but she wasn't his friend and he would feel no real
loss in her death. He only cared because Buffy cared and because the
witch had brought her back to him. He still had a chance. She was
his world and for an earth-shattering moment he had lost her. He had
to make it clear to her how much she meant to him before she went and
died on him again. "Slay...Buffy...."
"Willow!" Xander burst through the emergency room doors followed by
Anya and Giles. "Spike! What happened to Willow?" At first Xander
didn't bother noticing the person Spike's body was mostly blocking from
his view. He assumed it was Dawn or Tara, the person was female, but
Dawn was sitting beside Angel. What the hell was he doing here? If
he was responsible for something happening to Willow... Maybe the girl
standing in front of Spike was his best friend. Maybe she was fine -
just a few scratches, a bump, a bruise. "Willow?" Xander took the next
five paces in two strides.
"Can't you see we're busy?" Spike whipped around, revealing the girl
that had been obstructed from view.
"Buffy," Anya said the Slayer's name since Xander and Giles seemed no
longer capable of using their vocal cords. "Why aren't you dead
anymore?"
"Willow...she brought me back. I don't know how. Angel and Dawn were
with her." Buffy moved away from Spike and stepped toward Xander and
Giles. Impulsively, she hugged Xander. She met Giles' stunned gaze
over his shoulder. "I wasn't too late this time, Giles. When
Willow's heart stopped, I did CPR until the paramedics arrived and they
started her heart again."
"Her heart stopped." Xander backed away from Buffy. He walked past
Anya and leaned his forehead against the wall. Just a few hours ago,
he had been grieving for Buffy, but ever since he had found out about
her being the slayer, he had known her death was inevitable. He loved
Buffy, but he had saved a part of his heart to deal with her death.
His heart couldn't live without Willow.
"But it started again. That's good, right?" Anya touched Xander's
back. She wasn't good at this and there had been too many dead people
that Xander cared about in too short a time. "And Buffy's not dead
anymore."
"Buffy." Giles finally found his voice. In an uncharacteristic
display, he crushed his former charge to him.
"I'm so sorry, Giles, but I had to do it." Buffy looked up at him.
"You understand why, right?"
"Of course." Giles let her go. "I'm very proud of you, Buffy. Now,
how did Willow do this?"
"I don't know," Buffy repeated. She gestured over to the chairs.
"Ask Angel and Dawn, they were there."
Giles looked over, noticing Angel for the first time. The vampire
ignored them and the confusion of their reunion, instead he stared at
a set of double doors. "The book." How Willow had known about it or
its location, Giles had no idea, she had probably been at his Watcher's
Diaries again. She had obviously performed some sort of soul
restoration ritual, he would have to get the specifics from Angel once
they had learned more details of Willow's condition.
"Mr. and Mrs. Rosenberg?" Buffy's surprised question brought Giles'
attention to a distinguished looking couple who had just entered the
emergency room. Buffy turned to Spike. "You called them?"
"Hell, no. Had no idea that the witch had parents. Hospital must
have." The blonde vampire shrugged. He sat down beside Dawn, who
transferred her head from Angel's shoulder to his, although she did
keep a grip on the dark vampire's hand.
"Mr. and Mrs. Rosenberg," Buffy said louder to catch their attention.
She wasn't concerned about shocking them, she doubted that they had
heard she had died.
"Bunny." And if they had, it's not like the name would have rang bells.
Buffy offered Sheila Rosenberg a weak smile, but didn't correct her.
"What happened to Willow?" Have the doctors said anything?"
"I don't know what happened." That was partially true and besides,
Buffy had no idea what Angel had told the hospital about what had
happened. She was about to refer Willow's parents to her ex-boyfriend
for the made-up details when a doctor walked out of the doors that held
Angel's rapt concentration. It was the same doctor who had treated
her mother. He consulted with the admitting nurse before approaching
them.
"Doctor." Ira Rosenberg stepped forward. "We would like an update on
our daughter, Willow Rosenberg's, status."
The doctor scanned their worried faces, his glance catching Angel's as
he stood up. Buffy saw Angel nod slightly. "Well, Willow has suffered
from a severe trauma to her system, all body organs seem to have been
effected, but we've managed to stabilize most of them. Her brain has
been influenced the most, there's some unusual activity on the E. E. G.
Right now she is in a coma and is unable to breathe on her own. She's
on a respirator and I can't tell you when or if she'll ever awaken."
"But people do all the time," Buffy insisted. If she could come back
to life than surely Willow could wake up from a silly coma. "You know,
you hear about the guy who was in a coma for ten, twenty years and
then one day - poof, awake. Faith did it and it didn't even take a
year. Willow will wake up. We just have to wait."
"No." Ira Rosenberg shook his head grimly at the doctor. "Willow has
probably suffered from brain damage, if she did wake up she wouldn't be
the daughter we loved. Waiting will only breed false hope. It would
be in the best interest of everyone, Doctor, if Willow's respirator
was removed."
The announcement was met in silence until Sheila Rosenberg stifled a
sob and turned away from them. Buffy wanted nothing more than to beat
some sense into Willow's father. Didn't he know how wonderful,
special, and important his daughter was to the world and to them?
Didn't he know that they wanted her alive, brain damaged or not. If
that doctor even twitched in Willow's direction, Buffy would hit him.
There was no way he was getting near enough to Willow to unplug or
remove anything.
"I can't." With those words, the doctor saved his own life. "I'm
sorry, Mr. Rosenberg, but this isn't your decision. It's
Mr. McAlistair's." The doctor looked at Angel, obviously associating
the name unfamiliar to the others with him.
"Why would he have any say in my daughter's medical decisions?" Ira
Rosenberg raised his voice and glared at Angel.
"Because," Angel answered him quietly and calmly. "Willow is my wife."
