FF: Fever Chapter two

["Christeen Demons" <Shyfox30@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Disclaimer: We all know the drill. Characters of Buffy the Vampire Slayer 
belong to Joss whedon, mutant enemy, and I guess Upn.

Subtext: You bet. Willow and Buffy Rosenberg Summers are very happily 
married. If this isn't your cup of tea...run...run away.:-)

This takes place somewhere in the seventh month of Willow's pregnancy...in 
the sappho's spell universe. Somewhere near the end of the seventh actually.


Chapter Two: Walking through hell

You give me fever,
When you kiss me. Fever when you hold me tight.
Fever, in the morning, fever all through the night.


I like looking into a persons eyes, empathizing with them, warm glances, a 
comforting hand. A voice...a voice that understands their pain. That tries 
to make everything a little, tiny, tiny, bit better.

Then when I have them.

I show them what real pain is.

*****

The heat was intense, practically unbearable. She could feel it flicking 
against her skin in tiny flames of heat, as if it were teasing her, tasting 
her, slow cooking her so she could be eaten later. Sweat beaded on her 
skin, running down her back and trickling down her chest, she could feel it 
tickling in the valley between her breasts, irritating her skin. Her bangs 
were so damp they were sticking to her forehead, and if she weren't so 
intent on her surroundings she'd be rubbing it away constantly.

Instead, she barely even noticed that she was naked. Her eyes swiveled 
constantly, trying to make something out through the thick billowy smoke 
that covered the landscape. Fire pits littered the land, flumes of fire 
shooting out at intermittant moments, with a loud fiery
roar, irritating her when she got too close. But they weren't what held her 
attention, no it was the distant sound of wailing she could just make out 
with her hearing. A sound that had caught her from the moment she had 
opened her eyes to this strange landscape and
that had made her follow it, ignoring the heat on her feet, and body, and 
the overwhelming stench of burnt sulfer.

The sound of the wailing kept getting louder as she walked until she had to 
throw her hands over her ears to keep out the ear-shattering intensity of 
it, and still she was no closer to seeing who was making the awful noise. 
It wasn't a woman's voice, it was too high pitched for that, unless she 
happened to be a soprano, and even then the tone was all wrong. No, it 
sounded more like the scream of an eagle, or an alarm clock...or an infant 
crying.

She rounded a corner, one hand on the stone pillar for support, the other 
pressed to her temples still trying to block out the piercing cry. It wasn't 
hellish though, it was helpless. Innocence being consumed and she had to 
find it.

She had.

Drifting over a column of fire, burning but not consumed, drifted a child, 
an infant. Curled fetal like, seeking shelter from the flames where there 
was none. Crimson bands of eldritch energy hovered around the flames, a 
deep, rich crimson, crackling with black energy, like
veins, rippling across their surface. Occasionally, one band would reach 
into the flames, forcing the infant over.

The child, the infant, the BABY seemed aware of the Slayer's presense and 
turned her head againt the current of flames, against the binding crimson 
ribbons, holding her immobile, she saw The Slayer..and she screamed again. 
The Slayer saw her. Saw the child's green eyes..and her scream swallowed 
those of all.

The scream jolted her from her slumber and nearly sent her rocketing out of 
bed, until she realized that she'd brought the oppressive heat with her. 
She struggled for a moment to realize what was happening, the heat inside 
the blankets was thick and cloying and made her want to throw them off, so 
she did just that. The sheets underneath her were soaked with sweat, and 
she wondered if the air conditioner had kicked off during the night. Then 
she realized that the heat wasn't internal, she wasn't sick, and it wasn't 
external, she could feel the cool air coming from the ventilation duct. No, 
the heat was coming from right
beside her, to where her wife was laying, her arm clinging to the Slayer's 
own, the whole side of her body pressed so close against her, you'd think 
they were twins.

Willow was having a harder time getting comfortable these days, her usual 
modes for sleeping, wrapped completely around Buffy had to go with the added 
presence at her middle. Now she was forced to sleep on her back, something 
she hardly ever did before the pregnancy, and that had leant to some 
restless nights.

Buffy peered at her through the dark, noticing that she was sound asleep. 
"Well, at least she's sleeping okay." She muttered, feeling the heat 
radiating off her wife's skin. 'Why are you so hot?' Buffy murmured, 
worriedly, brushing the hair off of Willow's forehead, and
nearly jerking her hand back at the intense heat.

"Will?" Buffy said, trying to keep the panic out of her voice as she 
attempted to wake up her wife. Slowly green eyes opened, only to peer 
blurredly at her before shutting again. Buffy felt her heart rate speed up 
as her worry increased. "Come on, Will. Wake up!"

Green eyes opened again to look at her in annoyance, as her wife groaned at 
her in irritation. "Go 'Way. 'm hot."

The words were enough to propel Buffy out of bed. "Oh god...don'tbesick, 
don't be sick, don't be sick." she mumbled as she stumbled out of bed, 
hitting the floor, less than gracefully, causing a loud thump to echo 
throughout the room, almost forgetting to cover
her naked body with a bathrobe, before she practically tore the door off 
it's hinges and raced down the hall to the bathroom.

"Where is it? Where is it?" She kept mumbling to herself, as she pored 
swiftly through the items in the medicine cabinet, quickly growing 
frustrated with her inability to find the item she was looking for. "Damn 
it!" The Slayer swore, as she dropped to her knees to
check the items under the sink.

"Buffy?" Joyce had heard the racket coming from her daughter's room, and 
quickly becoming concerned had come to investigate.

Her agitated daughter ran a trembling hand through her hair and asked. 
"Mom, where's the damn thermometer?"

"What's wrong?" Joyce asked, moving into the doorway.

"Willow's really hot. I think she's sick." More bath stuff got thrown out 
of her way in her haste to find what she was looking for.

Joyce knew that if she didn't stop her daughter's fantic searching the 
bathroom would be in shambles. "Buffy, go take care of Willow, get her some 
water. I'll get the thermometer and bring it in there."

Buffy nodded tersely and left the bathroom, nearly colliding with Giles who 
was coming out of her mother's room, buttoning up his shirt. "Problems?" He 
asked, noticing that instead of questioning his appearance or answering his 
question, Buffy slipped by him and
raced down the stairs.

"Willow's sick." Joyce answered, grabbing the thermometer out of the 
cabinet, and walking briskly to her daughter's room, as worried about her 
daughter-in-law as Buffy was, if that were possible. She could see her 
huddled in the blanket, only her head sticking out from under the cotton 
comforter, but she seemed to be sleeping pretty deeply.
Sticking the devise into her ear, she pushed the button and waited for it to 
take it's reading. In a few seconds it was beeping at her, and she looked 
down at the reading, alarm settling over her senses as she saw how high 
Willow's temperature really was. "Oh god. It's 103.
I'm calling her doctor." Joyce said to Giles, heading immediately for the 
phone that was on her daughter's bedside table.

*****

"Okay...okay...we'll be right there. Thank you Doctor." Joyce said, with 
some relief, knowing the doctor was going to meet them at the hospital.

"Mom." Buffy was beyond nervous when she heard her mother on the phone with 
Doctor Wiseberg. "What...?"

"We've got to get her dressed, and get her over to the hospital. She's 
running a very high fever...Doctor Wiseberg is going to meet us there." 
Joyce explained, putting the phone down.

"How high?" Buffy asked, her voice creaking.

"Buffy..."

"Mom..." Buffy's eyes widened, demanding an answer.

"103." Joyce answered calmly.

"Oh god." Buffy almost cracked the glass in her hand.

"Buffy...get her some clothes out." Joyce said, moving purposely towards 
the bed.

"I'll um...hmm...go start the car." Giles said, exiting the room quickly, 
giving the women some privacy. It would have been funny if Buffy weren't so 
very worried. She quickly grabbed some clothes for her wife to wear then 
went back to the bed, where Joyce was
attempting futilely to wake Willow up. All she was getting for her efforts 
were annoyed groans and incoherent mumblings.

"Will...honey...come on. We've got to get you dressed." Buffy cajoled the 
red head, who was peering at them through unfocused green eyes.

"'m tired." She muttered, before her eyes slipped shut again, once more 
fast asleep.

"We're going to have to do this the hard way." Buffy grunted, lifting her 
wife into a sitting position. Luckily, they had the habit of sleeping in 
the nude, even now, so she didn't have to worry about taking anything 
off...just putting the outfit she had grabbed on.
She quickly, yet carefully slipped the shirt onto her wife's body, in any 
other circumstances this might have been considered erotic. But with her 
mother standing by, ready to help, and her wife's body, burning to the 
touch, it was anything but. Her mother had to help her put on the skirt, and 
when they were done, Buffy was amazed that Willow
still hadn't woken up.

"How are we going to get her downstairs?" Joyce asked, then knew that was a 
stupid question when Buffy raised an eyebrow at her before she stood up and 
lifted her wife into her arms. "Never mind." She said, shaking her head. 
"That's very disconcerting." It made her head hurt wondering just how her 
daughter got away with breaking simple laws
of gravity like that. Buffy gave her a look but her concentration was 
focused on getting Willow downstairs and to the car. "Just...don't do that 
at the hospital." They'd never be able to explain that away.

*****
Buffy's nerves were taut like guitar strings all the way to the hospital. 
What could be wrong? What's happening? She was fine earlier. Why? Her 
getting sick, she could handle it, she was the Slayer, she'd just bounce 
right back. But Willow, her Willow, she
didn't deserve this. And what about the baby? This couldn't be good for 
her either. The questions spun round and round in her head, but she just 
didn't have the answers for them. She watched Giles drive, wishing he'd just 
step on it, but she supposed getting there in one
peice would help.

'Come on Will. You've gotta be all right. You've just gotta be." Her 
dream was coming back to haunt her, making her wonder if it had been just a 
little too prophetic. Her baby was on fire all right, instead of it being a 
balmy 98.6 in there, it was a hundred and three.
Way too hot.

The second the car stopped in front of the emergency doors she was moving, 
racing inside the building, looking for anyone who could help Willow. She 
saw a couple of nurses behind a working station, and yelled over to them. 
"I need some help, here!" The nurses looked at each other and started to 
move, but they were too slow for Buffy's taste, so...spotting a nearby 
wheelchair, she grabbed it and raced back out the door.

"Hey!" One of the nurses called out, spotting the blonde dashing back 
outside. 'Never a dull moment around here.' She thought heading for the 
door, but by the time she made it to the door the blonde was back, pushing a 
red-headed, obviously pregnant woman in a wheel chair. She looked at the 
couple, nonplussed.

"What?!" The nurse started to say, but Buffy preempted her. "My wife is 
sick. Fix her!" And the nurse could tell, by the deadly look in those blue 
eyes, that the blonde was totally serious. She looked up at two apologetic 
looking faces. "Yes." The gentleman replied in a soft english accent. "I 
suggest you..er..fix her..quickly."

"Please...We'll fill out any paper work you require, but she's running a 
very high fever and we were told by Dr. Wiseberg to meet him here." Joyce 
answered, knowing that Buffy was running on pure adrenaline and very little 
tact.

The nurses face cleared up instantly, and went from befuddled and bemused to 
congenial in a heart beat. "Oh yes, Dr. Wiseberg called ahead. We've got 
her room all set up for her."

It didn't take long to get Willow settled, although the Nurses were quite 
surprised when they saw Buffy pick up the sleeping woman and settle her on 
the bed. Joyce and Giles exchanged amused, ironic looks and shrugged at the 
nurse when she looked at them.

"Oh..she..uh...weightlifts." Giles said, pantomiming lifting iron. The 
nurse raised her eyebrow but said nothing.

*****

Doctor Wiseberg, when he arrived, looked fairly rumpled, which was 
understandable considering they had called him out of bed in the middle of 
the night. He was even still wearing his bedroom slippers. Not that he 
seemed to notice, his whole attention was absorbed by the redhead lying very 
still, and very pale in the hospitable bed. She had
given no signs of waking up in the ten minutes it had been since they had 
arrived at the hospital, and was still lying almost comatose, unaware of her 
environment, or the very worried people surrounding her.

Buffy lifted red-rimmed eyes to greet him the second he walked in, and she 
was out of her chair by Willow's bed in a heart beat. "Dr. 
Wiseberg...thank you so much for coming." The Slayer's heart was in her eyes 
and the good doctor had to take a deep breath as he saw the depths of the 
worry and fear within them. "I...I don't know what's wrong with her...she 
was fine before we went to sleep...we even...umm..." She dwindled to a 
close, feeling foolish, even as her face flushed red. Dr. Wiseberg nodded 
in encouragement. "And when I woke up from this dream..." Her face clouded 
over as she remembered her nightmare, and Giles gave her an interested look, 
but he kept his mouth shut and let her continue. "I found her...like 
that...all hot...feverish."

The doctor nodded again, patted Buffy reassuringly on the shoulder, then 
moved over to the bed, and examined his patient with a critical eye. The 
red-head was flushed, sweating profusely, her normally pale skin even paler 
than normal, her eyes shifted restlessly under
the closed lids...lost in REM sleep. He had been practicing medicine over 
the last forty years, but somehow never developed the calluses over his 
heart that most doctors grew to save themselves from the emotions brought 
about by their work. He wondered, as he examined the poor girl who had been 
through so much already, if it might have been better if he had. If they 
didn't find a way to bring this fever down...and quick...well, he didn't 
even want to think about that at the moment, first they had to figure out 
what was causing it. Then, they could cure it.

He looked back over at Buffy, knowing that the blonde was looking to him for 
answers. "Well...we're going to run a battery of tests. Figure out what's 
going on with our young friend here. Then we'll know what to do for her."

Buffy nodded, her attention turning inward as she thought about whether she 
should tell the doctor about what had happened earlier that 
night...during...before they had fell asleep. She glanced nervously over at 
her mother and Giles, wondering just how much embarrassment she could take, 
then shrugged it off, there was no room for that now. This
was for Willow...this was for their baby...she had to tell. Because what if 
she'd...then it would be all her fault. "Umm...Doctor Wiseberg...there's 
something I think I should tell you."

The doctor, her mother and Giles all looked at her with interest. Buffy 
gulped as she felt their eyes on her, resisting the urge to shrink from 
their sight. "Earlier...before we fell asleep...when we were...you know..." 
Upon receiving three matching nods, she wet her
suddenly dry mouth before continuing. "We got a little...carried away...and 
Willow...bumped...I think...I mean...is it possible?...I think I might have 
hurt her." Buffy rolled her eyes at her unique inability to express a 
single sentence. 'That just took an eternity to say...and it will be a 
wonder if they even understood what you just said.'

"I'm sure that had nothing to do with what's going on here." Dr. Wiseberg 
smiled at her reassuringly, while he tacked another thing to his mental list 
of things to check. "But we'll check your baby, just to be sure."

Buffy nodded, feeling slightly relieved as the doctor gave her one last 
reassuring pat on the shoulder, and headed out to set up the tests for 
Willow.

*****
Dr. Wiseberg worked nonstop, but by the end of the first twenty-four hour 
period he was stumped. He had performed every battery of tests that he 
could think of, but the picture of just why Willow was burning up the way 
she was remained unclear. He had never seen anything like this. Tomorrow 
he would start calling in specialists of every field and
maybe together they could figure this enigma out. As it was, the time was 
nearing to prepare Buffy for the worst.

Sighing, he stretched his weary muscles, and moved out into the corridor. 
This wasn't a conversation he was looking forward to, of course, he never 
liked being the messenger of bad news. And throughout his carreer he had 
delivered many such messages...almost as
high a number as the babies he had delivered safely into the world. There 
were so many risks to this game, so many things that could go wrong, 
although modern science had come far in determining those factors, little 
still could be done about them. But this time
was so different, before this the baby had been striving, and so 
healthy...Willow, although she had been through severe times recently, had 
done her part to ensure a healthy baby. This should have been one for the 
text books. A picture perfect delivery...a picture perfect
baby. Now it looked like he was going to have to take the baby...six weeks 
too early. He didn't want to...that was the last thing he wanted to do, and 
he would be watching Willow very closely for the next few days...hoping and 
praying for the fever to go down...but if it
didn't...he would have no choice but to take the baby. Now, he dreaded the 
task of telling the 'father' the news.

Peeking in through the halfway open door, he spotted Buffy patiently wiping 
her wife's brow with a cool cloth. She had been here since arrival, never 
leaving the red-head's side, except for maybe short trips to the bathroom, 
but that was it...she didn't eat, wouldn't
sleep, but kept her steady vigil, whispering words of love into the 
red-head's ears that the nurses were talking unceasingly about. Most of 
them thought it was romantic, that they had a version of Romeo and Juliet on 
their hands. Only a few hard nosed nurses were
disgruntled by the flagrant disregard of the visiting hours. One had even 
pressed the issue with the young woman recieving such a peircing hard 
stare, that it had caused the battle ax to stutter apollegetically as she 
left ther room. She had come straight to his office and
complained about it, but he had simply shook his grey head and told her to 
leave them alone. They weren't hurting anybody, so far as he could see, 
although he did wish the young blonde would get some sleep.

He cleared his throat as he crossed the threshold, waiting for the blonde to 
pick her head up and look at him. It took her a moment, she had just 
finished pressing a kiss onto the fevered face. Then those deep blues rose 
to meet him, hope and questions mingling in their depths. "Did you find 
anything?" She asked, her voice husky, whether from lack of sleep, or just 
trying to keep her voice low, he couldn't tell.

"Uh...no." Dr. Wiseberg shook his head solemnly. "Buffy, I've been through 
all the tests with a fine toothed comb, but I can find no natural reason for 
any of this to be happening." Her shoulders sunk, like she was defeated, and 
he couldn't blame her reaction. "I'm going
to call some specialists tomorrow. Maybe...damnit.." He swore suddenly, 
his emotions getting away from him for the moment. "Maybe they can see 
something I'm not...but Buffy, I have to tell you. You have to be prepared. 
The longer her high fever continues the more at risk your baby becomes. 
Buffy, if we can't find a way to stop this, I'm going to have to perform a 
cesaerean and get your baby out of there."

Buffy stared at him, gulping reflexively, as she shook her head trying to 
figure out if she had heard what she though she had just heard. "But...but 
you can't..." She whispered, emotion filling her voice. "It's too 
soon....she can't...she's not ready yet." She struggled against the news, 
fighting it, not wanting to believe it. "What are her chances if you do 
this?"

"At this point..." Dr. Wiseberg said, sympathy deep in his voice. "They're 
better than they are right now."

...to be continued.



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