FIC: Requiem For A Dream [2/?]

[HD Genscher <HD.Genscher@xxxxxx>]

TITLE: Requiem For A Dream [2/?] - The Dreamer - Turning My Back On The Abyss
AUTHOR: HD_Genscher (hd.genscher@xxxxxx)
RATING: PG-13
PAIRING: B/W
DISCLAIMER: All characters and places belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, 
et al.
ARCHIVE: HD's Fan Fiction Archive, http://www.wiffy.de/hdffa/
FEEDBACK: If you liked it, I'll appreciate your feedback. And if you didn't 
like it, it'll help me a lot if you point out what I did wrong.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Real life's been a bitch lately and I didn't have time to 
work on the third chapter at all, but I decided to post chapter two of this 
story anyway. Enjoy!
---


Chapter 2.

TURNING MY BACK ON THE ABYSS


'Say something, Willow,' I think to myself. We're standing near the 
doorframe, Buffy's hands still on my shoulders. She's looking at me 
expectantly and a bit puzzled, waiting for an explanation for my sudden 
outburst. But I don't think it would be good to blurt out the truth. 'I've 
dreamt of you all my life, and now I finally met you. Do you wanna be my 
friend?' No, can't say that. Instead we should take it slow. Last night's 
'Will you hold my hand until I'm asleep' sure is in the plus column for 
building a friendship, but you have to earn someone's trust before becoming 
friends, and I begin to feel that sneaking up on her like I did wasn't 
exactly inspiring confidence in the first place. What if she doesn't want 
to be my friend? But why'd she have this 'Aaah, girlfriend!' look on her 
face then? Whoa, wait a minute... Girlfriend? Where did that come from? I 
blush at the thought. 'Will you please say something now?'

"I-I'm Willow," I stammer with a sniffle. 'See, wasn't that hard, right?' 
No, but could you please stop commenting on everything, brain?

Buffy smiles, quickly produces a tissue from somewhere, and starts wiping 
away my tears.

God, I must be looking awful.

"You're not," she says. Oops, guess I thought aloud. I smile at her gratefully.

Smiling is good, I encourage myself. And now, what? Why don't I show her 
around?

Melissa has been watching the whole scene with a quizzical smile on her 
face. First she seemed to be surprised at my regained ability to speak, but 
now... I don't know what to think of the way she's looking at the scene in 
front of her.

"Why don't you show Buffy around after breakfast, Willow," she suggests.

'Hey, that was my idea!' I think and suddenly I'm a bit mad at her.

"I'd love that," Buffy replies, and that answer all makes it up with 
Melissa again. Buffy would love it! Yay! I'm really looking forward to 
showing Buffy around now, but first... breakfast!

I love breakfast, with fresh bread, strawberry jam and cold milk. Of course 
we don't have either of those, this isn't a luxury hotel after all, but 
having breakfast with Buffy, in her white bathrobe, her hair still wet from 
the shower, is heaven. 'I'd like to start every day like this, from now 
on,' I think and smile at her. She smiles back at me and finishes her third 
sandwich. (Guess she burns a lot of calories when she hunts those baddies...)

After bringing our trays back to the small cart in the hallway, I take 
Buffy by the hand and show her the ward, from the locked entrance ("It's 
locked at all times and only opened when someone arrives or leaves.") to 
the bathroom ("Well, you know this one already...").

With only ten patient rooms, and a couple of others, one would expect the 
tour to be over quickly, but I slip in as much as I know about what the 
different rooms are used for, just to be at her side a bit longer.

Buffy patiently endures my flood of words, her eyes darting back and forth 
between the different doors and the hallway. 'Looking for potential escape 
routes?' I wonder. 'Well, as long as you take me with you...' She even asks 
a couple of questions, mostly regarding the routine on the ward.

Melissa and Barbara, the other nurse on the ward and a stout and resolute 
woman, are in the nurses station when we reach it, preparing the medication 
for the evening. Melissa smiles upon hearing my explanations ("And this is 
the nurses station. If you need something, go here and just ask..."), then 
continues labeling the small drug tubs her colleague prepared and checking 
them off on a list as we move on into the rear part of the ward.

This is where the common room is located. It's a large room opening towards 
the hallway, equipped with a couple of comfortable couches, low tables and 
a TV. So far, we haven't met any of the other patients, but just as I 
expected, Chess Girl is here. At least that's what I call her, and ashamed 
I have to admit that I can't remember her name.

Chess Girl, a mousy blonde of about 14 years, is sitting at the chess 
board, as usual. She's staring at the board with her fingertips pressed 
against each other, her facial expression one of extreme concentration. 
I've played her once or twice, and I must say that she's quite good. (Yes, 
I lost.) But then again I think she's been playing all her life, so that's 
not really unexpected.

If she doesn't have a partner, she's playing herself, like now, and when 
she's beaten herself, she just starts over again. Don't know how she does 
that, though. I mean, she must know what she's up to. I imagine that it's 
quite difficult for her to trick herself, unless she doesn't know anymore 
what she's doing when she's the 'other' player...

"May I do the next move?" I offer.

She slowly looks up at us as if she just awoke from a trance or something, 
but then she nods, despite the grim expression on her face. She's not 
talking at all, just like I was, and I guess she didn't even notice that 
what I just did is unusual, at least from what she knows about me.

I think hard for a while, then move the white knight so it's threatening 
her queen. Her face lights up and she smiles at me. "Good move, I guess," I 
whisper to Buffy who has been watching the whole scene in awe.

"I'm Buffy," she says and offers her hand to Chess Girl, who ignores it 
completely.

"She's playing day in and day out. Don't know why, though..." I whisper to 
Buffy, who's looking a bit flabbergasted at Chess Girl's ignorance. 
Suddenly I remember her name, and so I add, "...and her name's Caroline."

"Poor girl," is her whispered comment.

"I just call her Chess Girl, though," I continue with a sheepish grin as we 
move along.

"Guess that fits..."

"Anyway, that was the common room. We're allowed to hang out here as long 
as we want, 'til 10pm."

"Wow, there's even a TV..."

"Yeah. Although finding a show that all wanna watch can be a little bit 
difficult someti..."

"Hey Arielle, found your voice again?" the one patient that I least hoped 
to meet interrupts me. It's Marcie, a rather sturdy girl with short black 
hair. She thinks she's kind of a leader as far as the patients are 
concerned, and believe me, she's very keen to prove that to you, time and 
time again.

"Yeah," I say cautiously, feeling a bit embarrassed. "But my name's Willow."

I quickly glance at Buffy. She's got a 'Of course, that explains a lot' 
expression on her face, quickly replaced by one of confusion. 'Why did she 
start talking again when she saw me?' she's probably wondering now. Guess I 
have to talk to her, and soon.

"I'm glad, sweetie," Marcie says with a slightly ironic undertone. 'Don't 
sweetie me!' I protest, and I can see Buffy frown at Marcie's tone. She's 
already noticed something, I guess.

"Thanks, Marcie," I respond quickly and try to drag Buffy along.

"Don't you want to introduce yourself, Blondie?" Marcie turns to Buffy, 
blocking our way and ruining my attempt to avoid a confrontation between 
the two.

"Not until you introduce yourself first, Blackie..." Buffy answers, 
obviously unimpressed by the girl's behavior.

The two are glaring at each other, neither one willing to give in and look 
away, and for a moment I'm afraid they might start fighting or we'll be 
standing here for hours.

I hold my breath, but both to my great surprise and relief, Marcie turns 
away. "Big mouth, Blondie," she says over her shoulders as she goes back to 
her room opposite of the common room. "You'll regret that, both of you," 
she threatens us, and slams the door behind her.

"Tha-that was Marcie," I stammer. Buffy turns around at the fright in my 
voice. She's looking straight into my eyes now, and I can see an expression 
of concern and compassion in hers, mixed with determination, causing my 
heart to pound in my chest.

'Oh my god, if she's looking at me like this any longer, I'm gonna get all 
fuzzy and fainty,' I think to myself.

"Don't be afraid, Willow," she says with a soothing, confident voice. 
"She's just worrying about her position as the alpha female... She's not 
going to touch you, or I'll..." She grinds her teeth and continues, "Forget 
her. Show me the rest of the ward?"

"Sure," I say with as much self-confidence as possible, not wanting to look 
like a complete scaredy-cat, and smile at her thankfully for her... Well, 
what was it anyway? A declaration of friendship? A defensive alliance? 
'Buffy hereby declares that she will defend Willow, should she be attacked 
by a third party...' I chuckle at the thought, and Buffy gives me an 
admiring glance. Guess I really convinced her that I'm not afraid of Marcie.

As I show her the rest of the ward with newfound enthusiasm, I tell Buffy 
about the other patients, Pamela with her eating disorder in the room next 
to ours, Moony Girl (her actual name is Monica) who was committed to the 
ward because of a suicide attempt and who's in another ward at the moment 
because she tried it again about two weeks ago, and the others.

"And finally, this..." My voice trails off when I notice that Buffy's not 
listening anymore. She's walked past where I stopped, and is standing at 
the rear window, the one opening onto the backyard. She's looking very 
serious now, the smile that had been on her face about my enthusiasm 
completely gone. Curious about what she can see from there, I walk over to 
her, and understand immediately. About sixty yards away from the house, 
behind a meadow of withering grass and encircled in an rusty iron fence, is 
a small cemetery.

"Cemeteries give you the creeps, huh?" I softly ask, thinking of my 
dreams--Buffy sneaking over seemingly endless numbers of cemeteries, 
fighting for her life and killing the forces of darkness. She frowns again, 
this time at my question.

"W-what?"

'Danger, Will Rosenberg, danger!' I remind myself. 'You're not supposed to 
know anything about how she feels about cemeteries...'

"Well, they do for me, and so I thought..." I explain hastily.

"Yeah... yeah, you're right. They're giving me creeps." Her look finally 
breaks away from the graveyard.

"Sorry, where were we?"

I point to the large door with the conspicuous electronic lock. "This door 
leads to the staircase," I explain. "There's another ward on the floor 
above, and a couple of therapy rooms and the doctor's rooms in the adjacent 
wing."

Buffy takes a closer look at the numeric keypad. "Combination?" she asks 
concisely.

"Dunno," I reply, then add, "But it's five digits."

"Well... you never know when you might need it," she quickly adds at my 
curious look.

At that moment, the door is flung open from the other side, and Moony Girl 
steps through it, a rather happy expression on her face that for once 
replaced her usually dreamy one. She's followed by a grumpy nurse with 
ash-blonde hair, approximately in her late forties, carrying a bag that's 
probably containing Moony's stuff. Although we've quickly retreated to the 
end of the hallway, near the rear window, the nurse immediately catches 
sight of us with her cold, piercing eyes. "Don't you have an elsewhere to 
be," she barks. Without waiting for an answer, she leads Moony Girl down 
the hallway and into the nurses station, and closes the door behind them.

We look at each other, and I can't help a shiver.

"Scary," Buffy comments. With that, Buffy expresses exactly the same I'm 
thinking at the moment. "I'm glad we have Melissa."

"Yeah," I agree. "Guess Moony's back and better, then," I continue.

Buffy just growls in approval, and walks to the door at the left of the 
rear window we've been standing at. "What's in here?" she asks.

"It's an unused storeroom, I think... And that kinda concludes our tour," I 
tell her with regret in my voice.

"Thanks, you've been a great guide," she says with a sweet smile that makes 
me go all fuzzy again. I beam with joy and blush.

At that moment the door to the nurses station opens again. Barbara and 
Moony come out first and go straight to Moony's old room. Melissa emerges 
from the room, followed by the grumpy nurse, who says something about 
having a smoke and going home afterwards because she's got the afternoon 
off as she has to do something later that I can't make out. She disappears 
through the main exit at the other side of the ward, whereas Melissa takes 
the other direction and approaches us. "Here you are... Willow, you didn't 
forget your creative therapy, didn't you?"

I look at the wall clock above the nurses station's entrance. "Whoops," I 
just say, realizing that I should've been at my usual appointment with Dr. 
Penn since ten minutes.

Of course I had been wrong about the lack of available therapies in my 
(non-talking) case. There's music therapy (I'm glad they don't have a 
piano, though, or I probably would be forced to play...), which is quite 
relaxing because I mainly had to listen to some classical music, and 
movement expression therapy, but somehow, creative therapy has turned out 
to be my favorite. It's fun to create things with clay, to create something 
with my own hands out of this shapeless clod, without having to worry about 
getting dirty. ('Willow, what have you been doing? Did you and Xander get 
dirty again? What have I told you about girls not playing in the dirt?') 
Plus, it reminds me of kindergarten, and thus happier times. Lately, I 
proceeded to working with soapstone.

"No problem. We can go there right now, and Buffy can accompany us," 
Melissa remarks and turns to Buffy. "Dr. Marks wants to see you, Buffy."

She leads us to the door and quickly types in the combination, concealing 
the keypad with her body. Beep-beep-beep-beep-beep. Five digits. I look at 
Buffy, who's standing a bit to the side. Maybe she's seen a part of the 
combination?

I can't ask her, though, as Melissa quickly guides us into the staircase, 
and down the stairs. The wing of the clinic we've just entered holds the 
physician's rooms and all kinds of therapy rooms, all arranged along a long 
corridor. We walk past a couple of doors, and I reach my destination. 
Melissa and Buffy walk on, and I give her an encouraging smile when she 
looks back at me before they disappear around a corner where, as I recall 
from memory, Dr. Marks' office is located.

I breathe deeply, then knock on the door, open it and enter Dr. Penn's room.

"I've been waiting for you, Willow," Dr. Penn, an elderly woman with a tall 
and slender figure, welcomes me. Her hair is grey already and arranged 
around her head in a strange fashion. It reminds me of a bird's nest every 
time, and I have to resist bursting into laughter.

"I'm sorry, Dr. Penn," I just say.

"I've heard that you've spoken for the first time this morning." She raises 
from the chair behind her desk and comes over to me. "That's a great step 
forward!" She smiles at me and puts her hand on my shoulder.

"Thanks."

"I'm sure Dr. Marks will want to talk to you as soon as possible. But for 
now, go on with your figurine."

I walk over to one of the desks in the room, the one that's been assigned 
to me, and sit down. On it, next to some of the small bowls and fantasy 
figurines that I made from clay is the larger soapstone figurine I've been 
working on during the past weeks. Working with soapstone is different from 
clay. With clay you form your object out of the material, taking parts of 
the clod of clay and adding them step-by-step until the object is complete, 
whereas with soapstone, it's all about removing the unnecessary material 
until you've uncovered the figurine that's kind of hidden in the soapstone 
already.

My figurine's almost done now. All that's left for me to do is the lower 
part of the legs and the feet. Picking a file from the desk, I start 
removing the unnecessary soapstone to form the figurine's feet.

Once it's done, my figurine will be about one foot tall, standing at the 
edge of its cubic pedestal, looking down into the abyss. Think about that 
whatever you want, but that's the first thing that came to my mind when I 
thought about what could be awaiting its uncovering in my block of soapstone.

I don't know how long I've been working when someone knocks at the door. 
Dr. Penn looks up from the book she's been reading and says, "Come in." The 
door opens and Dr. Marks comes in. "Jeffrey, what can I do for you?" Dr. 
Penn greets him.

"Andrea, may I talk to Willow for a moment?" he asks.

"Sure," she nods.

"How are you?" he asks me while sitting down on the edge of my desk.

"Fine... I guess," I reply, put down my file and straighten up on my chair.

"Wanna talk about something?"

"Hmmm..." I pretend to be pondering his question, then add, "No."

"Don't get me wrong, this is a great progress that you seem to have made in 
the last few days, but I'd like to understand why you're talking again," he 
explains and looks at me.

Understand...what? Understand that the most important person in my life 
finally is a part of said life? Understand that for the first time in a 
long, long time I don't feel like I'm going through life alone?

"May I ask you something, Dr. Marks?" I ask instead of answering his question.

"Sure..."

"How's Buffy?"

"You seem to care a lot about her..."

Uh oh, I guess Melissa told him what happened.

"I feel that she's very important for me," I answer firmly.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

I remain silent.

"No," I finally say, staring at a point at the opposite wall.

"Willow, you can trust me. You can tell me everything." Thus spoke the 
snake, and darted its tongue. Twice.

"I--I can't." I begin to feel really uncomfortable at his inquiries. 
'Please stop it,' I plead with my eyes.

"Okay," he says. Obviously he felt my unease. I smile at him gratefully. I 
begin to understand that this is almost like a chess game, move after move, 
offering or giving something and getting something else in return.

"What's her problem?" I ask, feeling that I deserve getting something in 
return for what I offered to him.

"What?"

"Buffy, what's her problem?" I repeat, not going to give up so easily.

"Willow, you know that I can't talk to you about other patients. Medical 
secrecy, you know?" I should've know that he'd come up with that.

"Sure," I say with a pout. Kneading my lower lip, I ask, "Did she do 
something?"

"I guess you could look it up in a paper in no time, anyway..." he answers 
with a sigh. "She burnt down the gym of her former high school and got 
expelled. She seems to be a bit bewildered."

"She's not bewildered!" I blurt out, thinking that she certainly had 
reasons for doing what she did.


'Reasons? She's a lunatic, and she'll draw you into her world, into a sea 
of flames...'
'What if I'm drawn to the fire?'
'She's no company for you...she'll be your doom, daughter!'
'If that's what she is, I'm gonna embrace my doom, and now shut up, father!'


I'm grateful that he doesn't inquire about my outburst. Instead he just 
looks at me for a while.

"Willow, the medical secrecy I talked about... It applies to you as well. 
I'm not going to tell anyone, including your parents, what you tell me if 
you don't want me to." Seems he's not going to give up either.

"I understand. But... it's all new for me... just give me some time, okay?"

"Okay, Willow..."

He raises from the desk and shakes my hand. "It's been nice talking to you."

"Same here."

"Standing at the abyss?" he adds with a knowing glance at the figurine on 
the desk.

I think about the progress he's been talking about. Yeah, I guess he's 
right. I'm talking again, and that sure is a sign for me being on the road 
to recovery. Plus, I met Buffy, and we're well on the way to becoming 
friends...

Acting on the spur of the moment I turn the figurine around so it's now 
standing with the back to the imaginary abyss. Taking some of the clay 
that's in a box on my desk, I form a small flower out of it and carefully 
place it in the center of the pedestal. Now it's looking as if the figurine 
is looking down on that flower.

"No more," I say, and he smiles. "No more," I repeat to myself as he walks 
out of the room. Maybe Dr. Marks isn't such an awkward guy after all.

**

I spend the afternoon reading.

Buffy comes back for dinner, but my attempts to learn what she's been doing 
are fruitless. Guess she talked to Dr. Marks and the other therapists all 
day, and I fully understand that she doesn't want to go on in the same way 
right now. My assumptions are confirmed when she smiles gratefully at me as 
I give up after the third attempt. She's looking rather tired, and so am I, 
I guess, because that's how I feel. Tired, that is.

I change into my pyjamas, not without a short-lived feeling of shame at 
exposing myself in front of her, but she turns away, sensing my uneasiness. 
To my surprise she follows my example and begins preparing for the night as 
well.

Blushing at the thought of seeing her, I lay down on my bed and close my 
eyes. The last thing I see is Buffy, just in her bra and panties, turning 
her back on me and rummaging about in her closet for a singlet or something 
to wear for the night. 'Why? Why did you have to close your eyes?' I 
wonder. Just as I have convinced myself to have a peek at her again, I hear 
her bed squeak as she lays down as well.

"G'night, Willow," she says.

"Night, Buffy," I murmur and smile. With happy thoughts of how good it 
feels to be wished a good night by Buffy, I have to pay tribute to last 
night's events, and I'm sound asleep soon.

**

I'm roused from sleep by someone shaking my shoulders. In the pale 
moonlight that's shining in through the window, I can see that it's Buffy, 
sitting fully clothed on the edge of my bed.

"Buffy?" I whisper drowsily and slowly sit up. "What's going on?"

"Shhh..." she makes and puts her finger to her lips. "Wanna sneak out of 
here and have a walk in the moonlight?" she asks in a muffled voice.

I see her wide-open eyes glistening in the moonlight and if I wouldn't know 
better, I'd say that she's moonstruck, but I guess it's just her hunter 
mode (or whatever it's called) taking control, driving her out into the 
darkest night to make sure the ones she cares for are able to sleep safely.

I'm not sure why she wants me to accompany her, or whether this is a good 
idea at all to sneak around in the night. But then again... Every moment 
spent with Buffy is a moment to cherish.

'Your gonna break a dozen or so house rules,' another part of me makes 
itself heard.

'So what?' I think to myself.

"Okay," I say. I fumble for my clothes in the relative darkness. Buffy 
sneaks to the door and presses her ear to it, listening to the sounds 
outside. I join her near the door after dressing quickly, and holding my 
breath, I listen as well, but can't make out anything.

"Gotta wait for the right moment, Willow..." she whispers into my ear. I 
just nod, my brain occupied with processing how nicely her breath felt at 
my ear.

We're standing there like ten minutes, and I begin to think that I might 
fall asleep standing when Buffy suddenly grabs my hand. With the other, she 
noiselessly opens our door, and we sneak out. With a quick glance into both 
parts of the hallway, she makes sure that the coast is clear. She closes 
the door behind us with the same care.

"She's in Pamela's room," she whispers, referring to the night nurse. Still 
holding my hand, she begins to walk quickly towards the other end of the 
ward, past the now empty nurses station. She stops in front of the room 
that I had designated as a storeroom yesterday. Buffy opens the door, and 
then we're in. Just as she closes the door behind us, I can hear another 
one down the hallway open.

"We made it..."

"Sure," Buffy answers as if it were nothing.

'Although that was quite close,' I think to myself, 'And I have no idea 
whether we'll be as lucky again.'

I look around. The walls are covered with shelves filled with bed linen and 
boxes containing all kinds of other things. "Oh no!" I whisper as I see 
past where Buffy's standing. She's opened the window already, and now 
closely examines the iron grille that's blocking our way. "No problem," is 
her only comment.

She grabs two of the bars, takes a deep breath, and pushes hard. Suddenly, 
the grille gets loose and with a loud thump, it drops to the ground outside.

I gasp at the sight, although I know that she must be really strong from my 
dreams.

We both bold our breath, but all remains silent.

"After you," Buffy says and gives me her hand. With her help, I crouch 
through the window and jump to the ground.

"We really made it, Buffy!" I whisper excitedly when she jumps down next to me.

"Yes, we did," she says. She easily picks up the grille from the ground and 
reinserts it into the wall. Luckily for us, it stays in place although 
large pieces of cement have fallen out of the wall where the grille was 
attached.

She motions me to follow her, and with a stoop we sneak to the edge of the 
building. Just as we're about to round the corner, I almost bump into Buffy 
when she suddenly freezes mid-motion and kneels down. She slowly raises her 
fist up to her shoulder so I can see it, then waves sideways to the corner 
twice with her outstretched index finger. Although war films never were my 
thing, I immediately get what's going on. Slowly moving forward, I peek 
around the corner right above her. I can see the silhouette of someone 
standing about twenty yards away against the starry sky, and make out the 
unmistakable glow of a cigarette.

"Guess grumpy nurse has the night watch and is having a smoke," I whisper 
into Buffy's ear, and wonder how calm I am, although I'm sneaking around in 
the night and all. At home in Sunnydale, I wouldn't ever do that, and if I 
had to for some reason, I would've been scared stiff, but with her at my 
side, I feel perfectly safe and not excited at all. "Yeah," she whispers back.

We hold out at the corner for at least ten minutes. I pick up the sounds of 
someone walking on gravel, and to my relief the footsteps are moving away 
from where we are. Finally, silence falls (except for the owl I've been 
hearing in the past nights already), and Buffy gets up from the ground 
where she's been kneeling, takes my hand and runs off with me in tow 
without saying a word.

We cross the gap between the building and the edge of the small forest as 
fast as possible. Once we're in the woods' cover, we slow down. Buffy 
unerringly leads us through the forest, although I can't help but think 
that she's altering the direction we're walking in almost imperceptibly. As 
we emerge from under the trees, I realize that my impression was correct, 
as we've reached the one place I could've bet we'd check out: the old 
cemetery we've spotted from the window. Looking at it from a close 
distance, I can see that the fence surrounding it is broken at many places, 
and we enter it at a particular spot where the fence is gone completely.

It's strange to watch Buffy as we slowly saunter over the cemetery. She 
seems so changed now: she's extremely watchful, sneaking around, then 
stopping out of a sudden, listening to the sounds of the night, only to 
resume the sneaking again.

"I think it's an old graveyard," I whisper. "I bet no one's been buried 
here for years," I add, judging from the way the graves look like, and 
point to one of the graves. Like most of the others we've seen so far, it's 
almost completely overgrown. I feel Buffy relax a little as she seems to 
come to the same conclusion (yes, we're still holding hands and I'm not 
gonna complain about that).

After crossing the cemetery, we're finally out of sight as far as the 
clinic is concerned, so we can walk normally over the meadow bordering the 
cemetery from now on, and I begin to really enjoy our nightly excursion. 
There's a light and warm breeze, the crickets are chirping, the waxing moon 
is shining down on us, and most important, Buffy's still holding my hand. I 
listen to the crickets' song, and into my self for anything casting dark 
clouds over this beautiful night, but there's nothing. I'm just happy.

Soon we've reached the end of the meadow and an unexpected obstacle--a 
medium-height stone wall covered with ivy surrounding the estate.

With Buffy's assistance I climb over it. With a giant leap, she's suddenly 
standing next to me. She just jumped over the wall!

"Wow," I make.

"I, uh, do a lot of jumping, erm, sports..." she explains rather lamely.

As it turns out, we've landed in some really tight chaparral, and much to 
my regret, we've got to crouch on all fours to get through. But when we're 
on the other side of the thicket finally, we both gasp in surprise. Below, 
enlightened by the moon, are the dark, metallic gleaming rails of a 
railroad track. I remember hearing a kind of thundering or rustling 
sometimes during the nights. It slowly increased, went on for a while and 
diminished again. 'Of course! That's been a train, right here on this 
track,' I think to myself.

We half slide, half fall down the grassy slope. Once we've reached the 
bottom, Buffy just kneels down and lays her head on the rail, which is 
making me really nervous.

"There's a train coming, but it's still considerably far away," she says 
after listening at the rail for a moment.

Startled, I look up and down the track and my heart misses a beat. It's not 
a train, but someone sliding down the slope just like we did, approximately 
thirty yards away. I can't believe my eyes. It's Moony--her face is clearly 
visible in the moonlight. It must be her, although I can't imagine how she 
got here... She slowly turns around and begins to walk away from us.

"Oh my God, Buffy!" I yelp.

Buffy quickly rises from the ground and looks into the direction that I'm 
pointing to. Switching into full hunter mode, she takes in the whole 
situation immediately.

"Hey!" she shouts at the walking girl, but Moony doesn't react. "She's 
sleepwalking," I stammer. That's the only explanation I can think of.

I turn around to see the approaching train's inconstant headlight appear in 
the distance.

"Moony...um...Monica!" I yell, but there isn't any reaction from her.

"Get away from the track," Buffy instructs me and takes off into Moony's 
direction, running really fast. I follow her instructions immediately and 
climb the slope on all fours a bit. After I'm up the slope sufficiently, I 
turn my head to look what Buffy's doing. She's almost reached Moony.

Just as the train engine passes by my position, I see her push Moony off 
the track, then jump after her right in time. After that I can't see them 
anymore and for what seems to be an eternity, my world consists of the 
train's noise and vibrations, and the nagging fear that my eyes were 
playing tricks on me, that they didn't make it, that only Moony but not 
Buffy made it...

Finally the train is gone, its rumbling slowly dying away in the distance.

I quickly slide down the slope again and run on the ties to where I last 
saw Buffy and Monica. My heart leaps when I see them, dirty and in Moony's 
case with some bruises, but apart from that unhurt. Moony's still lying on 
the slope, an expression of absolute confusion on her face. Buffy slowly 
gets up. "Buffy!" I exclaim and hug her tightly. "Hey," she just says, 
playing cool. But I can hear the joy in her voice at seeing me unharmed.

Moony still can't understand what she's doing here. "What...what happened? 
Where am I?" she suddenly asks. "You're safe now, Moo...Monica," I explain. 
"We're at the railroad track near the clinic, you were sleepwalking 
or...something...and then a train came...and Buffy saved you."

She just stares at me, then at Buffy. I bet I could've told her that we 
just saw Elvis on a flying motorcycle, and she wouldn't have objected. 
"She's in shock," Buffy explains.

"I...sleepwalked?" she slowly says to herself.

"Come on, we have to get you away from here," Buffy says and grabs her left 
arm. I grab the other, and jointly, we climb up the slope and crouch 
through the chaparral, Buffy ahead, then Moony and finally me.

"I never sleepwalked," Moony suddenly says with determination, and for the 
first time, I have the impression that she's fully with us again.

Finally we arrive at the wall. Buffy is the first to climb over it. Moony 
doesn't have difficulties following her, so I guess that kind of answers 
how she got here. She must've followed us the whole time, or has she?

Now it's my turn. At the moment I heave myself up to the top of the wall, I 
hear a sound to the left. I freeze and turn my head. I see something white, 
or light-colored, in the distance, somewhere in the bushes near the wall. I 
try to take a closer look, but it's gone already. I swing my legs over the 
wall and jump down on the other side.

"What took you?" Buffy asks.

"I dunno. Something was there, animal or...whatever," I say, pointing to 
the left, and shrug. Buffy intensely listens into the designated direction, 
an expression of heightened vigilance on her face, but then she shrugs as well.

We quickly walk over the meadow, the romantic mood that I felt before gone, 
replaced by an unfounded unease. We pass by the old cemetery, and Buffy 
directly takes us to the window we climbed through.

The grille is still in place. "Did you climb out through this window?" 
Buffy wants to know. Moony gives both of us a disbelieving look, sure 
thinking something like 'How could someone climb through a bared window?' 
She shakes her head. "I don't remember," she says.

But how did she get out of the ward, if not through this window? I don't 
have time to contemplate this anymore because suddenly the vicinity of the 
building is bathed in light. Dazzled, I close my eyes. "Move!" Buffy 
shouts, and I feel her drag at my arm. But I just remain where I am, 
paralyzed. 'We're caught, we're caught, we're caught'--this is the only 
thing I can think of right now. I try to open my eyes again, and finally my 
efforts are crowned with success.

Through my screwed up eyes, I see someone running up to us, and a cold and 
strident voice says, "Now you're in trouble."


To be continued...


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"It's a good fight, Buffy, and I want in."
"I kinda love you."
Buffy & Willow, 'Choices'

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