Spans: February 12th, 2004 - February 28th, 2004
History:
Annie will be five on February 14th.
Spike and Buffy have been married five years this month. (seems longer, doesn't it?)
Buffy turned 23 on January 19th.
All the Potentials were endowed with full Slayer power in February 2003.
Buffy and Spike learned of the other dimensions in May, 2003.
**~**
February 12th, 2004:
Buffy walked slowly along the shoreline. It used to be one of her favorite dreams, but since Angel had released the claim and Spike could no longer join her here, now it just made her sad. She had loved spending that time with him, whether in her dreams or in his. No matter where they were or what they were doing in the dreams, it was always that much better with Spike there, too.
She stopped, faced into the sun and closed her eyes. Buffy just let the sun wash over her as she listened to the waves break against the shore and breathed in the fresh smell of the sea. It was still one of her favorite places to be . . . but now to share it with Spike they had to drive out to the beach . . . and, since giving Angel the Gem of Amarra for “safekeeping”, it could only be at night now. At least in her dreams, Spike could come out in the sunshine with her.
Buffy looked out over the vast ocean before her . . . Angel was out there – somewhere under the waves, and so was the Gem of Amarra.
That night in December, after learning that Angel had released the bond, Buffy had called Angel and asked him to meet her the following night at one of the marinas between Sunnydale and L.A. She told him she needed to talk to him about the Gem and about Spike. She told him that Spike was still mad about the videotape and still believed it was her in it; he didn’t trust her anymore. She told Angel she wasn’t sure if Spike would ever get over it and she just needed someone to talk to about it who could understand.
After Angel agreed to meet her, Buffy got Faith up, told her what was going on, and they headed out to make arrangements. It wasn’t like Buffy hadn’t given Angel ample warning and plenty of second chances . . . she’d given him more than he probably deserved. This was the last straw, though. She still didn’t know if he had anything to do with Annie being kidnapped, or if that was just a horrible coincidence, but she intended to find out.
When Angel arrived at the marina, Buffy met him in the parking lot and invited him to come into the hotel room she had rented so they could talk. He, of course, agreed. Faith was waiting for them, though, and, as soon as Angel was in the door, he was hit hard in the head with a baseball bat, knocking him out cold.
Faith loaded Angel onto the boat that she and Buffy had rented earlier that day and the three of them headed out to sea. Twenty-four hours of interrogation revealed that Angel’s involvement consisted of releasing the bond and sending the videotape. He had obtained the tape from a dimensional-hopping vengeance demon for a pretty penny. He was sure sending the tape to Spike, after releasing their bond, would break Buffy and Spike apart and send Buffy into Angel’s arms – and, it had worked perfectly until Marcus kidnapped Annie and Lorne. Angel knew Buffy would never forgive herself, possibly not even be able to live with herself, if anything happened to her daughter, so he had scrap his plan and help find Spike in order to save Annie.
If Angel hadn’t sent the video and broken the bond, would Annie have been kidnapped? It was hard to say, possibly the answer was yes – she would’ve still been kidnapped – but the two weeks of torture when Spike was missing wouldn’t have happened and there’s every chance that the kidnapping could’ve been avoided completely, since Annie wouldn’t have been with Lorne – who, let’s face it, isn’t the most physical demon around – but with someone stronger – like Buffy or Spike or Willow or Tara . . . or possibly even Xander . . .
Buffy slid the ring that held the Gem of Amarra on Angel’s finger, telling him she didn’t want anything to happen to him for a good long while, before she and Faith locked him in a steel shark cage and dropped him over the side of the boat. Although Faith had tried to talk Buffy into just dusting him, Buffy decided that was really too good for Angel at this point . . . plus, she had promised him this little reward if he fucked with her again . . . so she felt obliged to keep her word.
Buffy hoped they could find another way to re-establish the claim, but so far no one had been able to find any way to do it without the clan leader. Even if Angel had been dusted and Spike became the clan leader, there didn’t seem to be any way to do it – all the books on vampire history and lore simply said that to create a claim in that situation, it would be done by him turning her, which neither of them considered even for a minute.
Buffy felt the water rising on her legs as she stood on the shore. It was warm against her skin and she closed her eyes again to block out all the thoughts of Angel and claims and the Gem of Amarra from her mind – she was tired of thinking about all that.
“Buffy, wake up, luv,” she heard over the waves crashing on the shore.
“Huh?” she asked.
“Wake up, Buffy. Your water broke, luv. Time to go,” Spike told her as he shook her gently.
Buffy opened her eyes to see him standing over her in their room. “What?” she asked sleepily.
“Your water broke. Need to go . . .” he told her again as he helped her sit up in the bed and then get to the bathroom to clean up.
Spike woke Willow and Tara and told them what was going on and they said they’d come down to the hospital a little later when Annie got up.
**~**
“And I’m telling you something doesn’t feel right!” Buffy told the doctor as she lay in her room at the hospital sometime later. The contractions were still fairly light and far apart; they hadn’t moved her to the delivery room yet, but something was wrong . . . Buffy didn’t know what, but something was wrong.
“Buffy, everything is showing fine . . . the baby’s heartbeat is strong, its head is in position . . . everything’s fine,” the doctor told them, as he looked over the chart. “Just need to wait now for the contractions to get stronger.”
Buffy shook her head. Something didn’t feel right . . . with Annie it hurt like a son-of-a-bitch, but not this early. Every contraction now, even though they weren’t strong, hurt as much as it did on the last contractions with Annie. Buffy looked at Spike, who looked sympathetic, but wasn’t sure what to do.
Buffy felt another contraction coming and gripped down on the sides of the bed as the pain sat her straight up and she screamed out. Spike tried to do what he could to help her, but other than support and rub her back, he wasn’t sure what else to do.
“That’s not normal,” he told the doctor when the contraction finally passed and Buffy collapsed back onto the bed.
“Every delivery is different, every woman is different . . . everyone has different levels of pain tolerance,” the doctor told them.
“Pain tolerance!? PAIN TOLERANCE?!” Buffy yelled at him. “I’ve been nearly ripped apart by fucking . . .” Spike put a hand over Buffy’s mouth to stop her from saying that she’d nearly been ripped apart by primeval vampires and possibly winding up in the mental ward rather than the maternity ward.
“She can handle pain, that’s not the problem, doc,” Spike told him.
“We can still do the epidural, Buffy,” the doctor told her, ignoring Spike.
“I don’t want a fucking epidural . . . I’m telling you, something is wrong!” Buffy told the doctor again and the doctor simply shook his head.
“I’ll check back on you in a little while . . .” he said before leaving the room.
“Fuck,” Buffy said as she lay back on the bed.
“Spike, something’s wrong – I know it,” she told him.
Spike sighed and took her hand. “I believe you, Buffy – I just don’ know what to do. What do you want me to do?”
“I wish Dr. Bender was here . . . why did she have to pick this week to go to Bermuda? . . . Can you kill that doctor and get me a different one?” she asked hopefully.
Spike shrugged. “Sure, that’s a doddle. No worries, I’ll be right back, yeah?” Spike told her as he got up and dropped a kiss on her forehead before heading out of the room.
Buffy sighed heavily. He isn’t gonna kill that fucking doctor. I’ll have to kill him myself if I want him dead, damn it.
Spike walked out into the waiting room and looked for their friends. Willow and Tara were there, along with Annie, as well as Giles and Anya. Xander had to work, but said he would stop in later and to call him when they knew anything. They all looked at Spike hopefully as he walked up to them, but he just shook his head to let them know nothing new had happened.
“Red, ain’t your Mum a doc of some sort?” Spike asked Willow.
“Yeah, she a psychologist . . . a child behavior psychologist,” Willow told him.
“Does she know any good baby doctors . . . baby deliverin’ doctors?”
“I don’t know, but I can call and ask her. Is there something wrong?” Willow asked as she dug in her purse for her phone.
“Buffy says there is; doc’s a duffer . . . don’ believe ‘er,” Spike told her with a shrug. “She wants her regular doc, but she’s on vacation in Bermuda . . .”
Willow, Tara, and Giles all got worried looks on their faces. It wasn’t good if Buffy thought something was wrong . . . Buffy was usually right about stuff like that.
“I’ll see what I can do, ok?” Willow told Spike. “You go back and stay with Buffy . . . we’ll see if we can find a different doctor.”
Spike nodded and headed back for Buffy’s room.
Spike could hear Buffy’s screams before he got halfway down the corridor and he took off running towards her room. When he got there, Buffy was nearly doubled over in pain, and would have been if not for the baby keeping her from actually doubling over, and holding her stomach as she screamed. Spike rubbed a strong hand up and down her spine, but really had no idea what to do to help his wife.
A nurse came in and started checking the vital signs of Buffy and the baby . . . but other than an elevated blood pressure and heart rate, most likely from the pain, everything appeared normal - except for the blood curdling screams coming from her.
“Are you sure you don’t want that epidural, honey?” the nurse asked when the contraction subsided and Buffy lay back on the bed trying to catch her breath.
Buffy shook her head from side to side. “I want . . . a fucking . . . doctor . . . that . . . knows . . . their ass . . . from a hole . . . in the . . . ground,” Buffy told her between deep breaths.
“Well, good luck with that in this town, honey,” the nurse told her with a small smile. “Tell you what,” the nurse said in a low voice. “Let me see if I can’t get Dr. Pratt to come by and see you.”
“Already got a prat for a doc, don’t need another one . . .” Spike commented.
The nurse smiled at Spike. “If there’s anything wrong, Dr. Pratt can find it, honey. I’ll page him for you, ok?”
“Thanks . . .” Buffy told the nurse as she closed her eyes and willed the contractions to stop, but it didn’t work. The contractions were soon coming closer and closer together and lasting longer and they were just as painful as they were when they started.
When her contractions were three minutes apart, and she was fully dilated and effaced, they moved Buffy and Spike into a delivery room. The promised Dr. Pratt had still not shown up, so the prat doctor was all they were left with.
“Ok Buffy, I can see the head . . . just another big push and it’ll be out,” the doctor told her as Buffy leaned back against the bed and tried to breathe. Now it hurt all the time . . . not just during contractions, although they were worse. This was still not like with Annie . . . Buffy still knew that something was wrong, but all the nurses and doctors kept telling her otherwise . . . all their machines said otherwise – who was she? Just the mother. Just the patient.
Buffy felt another contraction coming and grabbed Spike’s hand and she leaned forward and tried to push into it with a long scream.
“That’s it Buffy . . . here it comes!” the doctor said as the baby emerged from the birth canal.
“Sumthin’s wrong!” Spike exclaimed suddenly. “There’s too much blood . . . her heart . . .”
Spike didn’t finish before all the monitors in the room started beeping wildly and Buffy passed out, falling back against Spike’s arm, which he’d had on her back. Her blood flowed out in waves, suddenly unhindered by the baby in the birth canal. The doctor clamped and cut the umbilical cord and handed the baby to one of the nurses before he started calling out orders to the other nurses and doctors that suddenly started rushing into the room.
They pushed Spike back away from her and laid her down flat . . . the monitor showed her heart rate was a flat line as they charged up the defibrillator and prepared to jolt her heart back to life.
Spike stood by helplessly as the nurses and doctors worked frantically to stop the bleeding and re-start Buffy’s heart. “No, no, no, no . . . NO!” Spike cried as he watched them work. “C’mon Slayer!” he screamed at her from his position near the wall of the delivery room . . . “Please, please c’mon . . . Buffy . . . PLEASE!”
Spike took a deep breath to steady himself as he tried to listen over the noise of the monitors and other people in the room for Buffy’s heartbeat to resume. Then he heard it . . . Oh, thank God, he thought as he heard a faint heartbeat coming from her. But the nurses and doctors where still working on charging the defibrillator . . . the monitor still showed a flat line.
“What the bloody hell?” Spike muttered as he pushed back through the crowd that now surrounded his wife. As he reached her side he realized . . . the faint heartbeat wasn’t coming from Buffy’s chest, but from her abdomen . . .
“There’s another baby!! STOP! What about the other baby!?” Spike exclaimed as the nurse placed the defibrillator paddles on Buffy’s chest and yelled, “CLEAR!”
“WHAT other baby?” the doctor asked. “There was no other baby on the sonogram.”
“There’s another bloody baby! I can hear the heartbeat!” Spike exclaimed, moving towards the doctor and stopping the nurse that had been ready to shock Buffy’s heart back to life.
The doctor looked at the monitor that had been for the baby’s heart rate, and, sure enough – there was still a heartbeat – albeit faint, on the monitor.
“Son of a bitch!” the doctor exclaimed as he started barking out more orders to the nurses. They quickly swabbed Buffy’s abdomen with iodine and prepared for an emergency C-Section. The doctor had made a decision – the mother was most likely lost – she was bleeding out, but he could possibly save the second baby.
Spike knew that this was bad . . . he could smell and see the blood that Buffy was losing and he knew that it was too much. Her heart was perfectly still . . . not beating at all . . . the baby still inside her was fading quickly as well. As the doctor and nurses went to work, cutting into Buffy’s uterus to try and deliver the second baby, Spike turned and ran from the delivery room, moving as fast as his legs would carry him, to the waiting room.
He was in scrubs and cloth booties covered his shoes, making the soles slick and he slid around the corners as he ran down the seemingly endless corridors of the hospital. When he finally reached the waiting room, all their friends stood up in surprise as he rounded the corner and nearly fell over some of the chairs.
“RED!” he screamed as he grabbed Willow’s arm and began pulling her back with him to the delivery room.
“WHAT! Spike what is it?” Willow asked as she tried to keep up with him as he dragged her along the corridor.
“She’s bleedin’ out!”
“Oh, Goddess!” Willow exclaimed as she tried to quicken her pace to keep up with Spike.
When they reached the delivery room, the doctor had just delivered the second baby and a nurse was working to clear the baby’s airway. Another nurse was preparing to shock Buffy’s heart back to life as yet another doctor was trying to cauterize the torn tissue within her that was still bleeding.
Willow started reciting the now all too familiar spell to stop the bleeding . . . she thought momentarily of putting all the nurses and doctors to sleep, but they needed to keep working on the baby and on shocking Buffy’s heart, so she just started the spell and caught the whole room in the magical tornado of light and power.
All the doctors and nurses suddenly stopped what they were doing when the lights started swirling around them.
“GET TO BLOODY WORK!” Spike screamed at them, going from one to the next and shaking them, if need be, to get them back to the job at hand, as Willow continued chanting in Latin and the swirling lights changed to bright red and engulfed the entire room with healing power.
Suddenly, the tornado of lights stopped and Willow collapsed on the floor. The startled doctors and nurses ran to help her, but Spike stopped them. “Bugger that!” he told him. “She’s alright – FIX BUFFY!”
Before long, the doctors and nurses had gotten a transfusion started for Buffy and had, after several attempts, shocked her heart back to life, closed the incision in her uterus and abdomen and taken the babies to the neonatal intensive care unit to be monitored.
When she was stabilized, they moved Buffy to the ICU – where she remained stable, but unconscious, and on a ventilator.
**~**
February 17th, 2004:
It had been nearly a week since the twins were born and Buffy remained in a coma. The doctor’s had done several EEG’s and other tests and told Spike that her brain had been without oxygen for too long . . . she was brain dead. Spike refused to believe it. They could show him all the fancy tests they wanted, but he refused to believe that she was gone. She was the Slayer . . . she would heal; she would be fine.
Spike brought the babies down from the hospital nursery to see her several times a day. Two perfect babies, a boy and a girl. Both were small . . . smaller than Annie when she was born, but they were perfect; both were towheaded blonds with blue eyes. Spike thought they both looked like Buffy, although Willow and Tara pointed out that the boy actually looked more like Spike.
“We really need to record their names, Mr. Weckerly,” the nurse told Spike on the sixth day after their birth. She’d told him this nearly every day since they were born.
“And I told you before, I bloody well don’t know their names,” Spike said as he picked the boy up from his crib to take him down to see Buffy. “You’ll just have to wait ‘til their mum wakes up.”
The nurse sighed and shook her head. She’d seen this before – denial. By now everyone in the whole obstetrics, pediatric and intensive care units knew the story . . . the mother was never going to wake up.
Whoever had done the sonograms had completely missed the second baby . . . somehow it had been concealed behind the first and both babies had tried to come down the birth canal at the same time when Buffy went into labor, which is what had caused the intense pain . . . and, ultimately, the hemorrhage. Apparently, the babies were so close that one completely concealed the other; their heartbeats had been in perfect sync, too – never showing up on any of the monitors as anything but one heartbeat. Not even Spike knew there were two babies until the first had been born and he could still hear the small heart beating within Buffy.
February 25th, 2004:
Spike stayed at the hospital twenty-three hours a day, only going home for a quick shower and change of clothes before coming right back to be at Buffy’s side. The nurses didn’t have the heart to kick him out . . . they figured he would soon realize that his wife was gone and wasn’t coming back to him.
The nurses had seen this before, at first there would be lots of visitors and the family members would stay by the side of the patient that lay in a coma, but after a time, the friends would stop coming . . . then the family would slowly, but surely, reduce the number of hours spent until, one day, they would just stop coming, too. The nurses, however, had most certainly never met anyone like Spike before.
Willow and Tara told him that it was important to talk to her, to touch her . . . to make sure she knew they were there waiting, so Spike did everything he could think of to comfort Buffy, to make sure she knew he was there and that she was loved and missed. He would recite poetry, tell her stories – old and new – just talk to her about nothing and everything, and sing to her. He’d sing any song he could remember or think of . . . but his favorite song for her was “Please Forgive Me” . . . he hoped she would forgive him for so many things, including not doing more when she told him something was wrong and not being able to let her go now. He needed her to come back to him more than he’d ever needed anything in his life.
{{
Hear the song at the following YouTube Link:
YOUTUBE : Bryan Adams, Please Forgive me
}}
~~*~~
It still feels like our first night together
Feels like the first kiss and
It's gettin' better baby
No one can better this
I'm still holdin’ on and you're still the one
The first time our eyes met
it's the same feelin' I get
Only feels much stronger
and I wanna love ya longer
You still turn the fire on
(chorus)
So If you're feelin' lonely.. don't
You're the only one I'd ever want
I only wanna make it good
So if I love ya a little more than I should
(chorus 2)
Please forgive me, I know not what I do
Please forgive me, I can't stop lovin' you
Don't deny me, this pain I'm going through
Please forgive me, if I need ya like I do
Please believe me, every word I say is true
Please forgive me, I can't stop loving you
Still feels like our best times are together
Feels like the first touch
We're still gettin' closer baby
Can't get close enough I'm still holdin' on
You're still number one
I remember the smell of your skin
I remember everything
I remember all your moves
I remember you, yeah
I remember the nights ya know I still do
(chorus)
One thing I'm sure of
Is the way we make love
And the one thing I depend on
Is for us to stay strong
With every word and every breath I'm prayin'
That's why I'm sayin'...
(chorus 2)
**~**
Spike brought Annie in to see Buffy a couple of times a day – technically, they weren’t allowed more than one visitor at a time in ICU, and normally no children, but the nurses all felt so bad for the “young” father that they didn’t say anything. They couldn’t imagine how he was coping with two babies and the little girl while his wife lay in a coma that she would never recover from.
Spike thought that maybe he shouldn’t let Annie see Buffy like this, but she was a smart girl and she knew something was wrong, so he felt that lying to her would only make it worse. Annie and Spike would talk to Buffy and tell her what was going on at home and at pre-school.
They told her about Willow and Tara taking Annie to the animal shelter and picking out a sweet kitten for her birthday. They got a beautiful calico with one blue eye and one green eye and named it Miss Kitty Fantastico. It slept at the foot of Annie’s bed every night. Annie was in charge of feeding her and making sure the water bowl was clean and full every day.
Annie told Buffy that Sarah had beat Johnny up because Johnny was pushing Molly on the swings after he told Sarah that he didn’t even like Molly . . . Annie thought that served Johnny right – so did Spike. Annie told Buffy that it was ok that one of the babies was a boy . . . even with the cootie problem – because at least she had a little sister too, and together they could probably keep the cooties under control.
Lorne had sent a beautiful dress to Annie for her birthday . . . Spike said it was fit for a princess and they’d have to take Annie out someplace nice so she could show off. Maybe to Giggles N’ Hugs or Fuddrucker’s; this was definitely not Chuck-E-Cheese material.
**~**
“Mr. Weckerly?” a hospital administrator poked her head in to Buffy’s small ICU room on the seventh day after the twins were born.
“Yeah,” Spike answered as he sat in the chair next to Buffy, holding his new daughter and feeding her a bottle that the nurses had prepared for him.
The administrator came in and stood just inside the doorway. “Hi,” she said. “I’m Victoria Langley . . . I’m the hospital admissions administrator,” she started.
“Yeah,” Spike answered her without looking up.
“Umm, well, the thing is . . . the babies really are old enough to be released now . . . and the insurance ran out on them several days ago . . . so, I have some forms here for you to sign and you can take them home . . .”
Spike looked up at the woman with a furrowed brow and narrowed his eyes at her. “I can take them home, can I? And when can I take my wife home, then?”
“Well . . . ummm . . . you know if we take her off the ventilator . . . well, she can’t breathe on her own . . .”
“And whose fault do you suppose that is?” Spike asked the administrator as he set the empty bottle down, raised his baby daughter up against his shoulder and began to pat her back softly with his hand.
“Well . . . it’s just one of those things . . .” the administrator started.
“No it bloody well is NOT ‘just one of those things’,” Spike said – his voice cold as ice.
“Mr. Weckerly, I assure you, everything that could’ve been done was done . . . childbirth is not without its risks.”
“True enough . . . but ya know she told your so-called doctor sumthin’ was wrong; she told the nurses sumthin’ was wrong; she told anyone who would bloody LISTEN that sumthin’ was wrong and you all ignored her!” Spike told the woman as he stood up and stalked slowly towards her, still holding his new daughter against his shoulder. “That isn’t just one of those bloody things! In fact, according to all the solicitors that’ve dropped their card off at m’ house . . . I think that’s called malpractice.”
“Ummm . . . well, Mr. Weckerly, now it’s really not necessary to go there . . .”
“It’s not, eh? Well, then I think that it’s not necessary for these babies to go home until their Mum does, either . . .” Spike informed her.
“Oh . . . well, yes, of course . . . you’re right, of course . . . but . . . I mean, what if she doesn’t, you know, wake up?” the administrator asked.
“She will,” Spike informed her as he brushed past her to take his daughter back to the nursery and get his son.
February 28th, 2004:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In a sea of counterfeit beauty, and puppet strings,
She shines brighter than the sun and moon, she brings,
Courage and strength, of all kinds, to the maul,
Never buckles under pressure, no matter her back's at the wall.
A lion in her heart, but a mission in her mind,
She thinks first of others, no excuse will she find.
She lives with honour in this merciless place,
You wouldn’t believe the blood, sweat, and tears that have run down her face.
She isn't what you’d expect, from a girl like her,
She makes your thoughts change, a new prospective may occur.
Wakes up every day with a vow to herself,
Live everyday to the fullest, never fall stealth.
Woke me up to the new side of this place,
A view of the world I would’ve never seen in my haste.
I cherish the life she’s given me, I confess,
She is a perfectly sculpted mess.
Won’t be labeled, won’t be stamped.
A warrior, not for confined spaces, too cramped…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“That’s private,” Spike said as he re-entered Buffy’s ICU room after going to meet Willow and Tara in the lobby to drop Annie back off to them after her visit with her mother.
Nurse Wanda set the journal back down on the table and turned to face Spike with a sad smile. “Sorry . . . it was open. It’s wonderful - from the heart. Did you write it?”
Spike had grown to like the older nurse over the last days. She’d always been kind to him and was one of the only ones who seemed the least bit encouraging about Buffy’s condition, saying that “God works in mysterious ways” and that Spike shouldn’t give up hope for his wife.
“Yeah,” Spike said as he walked into the room and flipped the journal closed.
“She must be a remarkable woman,” Nurse Wanda said.
“She is,” Spike agreed.
“You should read it to her. She’d like it.”
Spike just shrugged.
“What you’re doing . . . talking to her – bringing the babies and Annie, it helps, you know . . . I always know when you’re talking to her, singing to her – I can see the changes in her heart rate on the monitor. She can hear you,” the nurse told him.
Spike nodded slowly . . . he knew her heart rate would increase, especially when he sang to her, but the doctor had told him it was just something that happened . . . a motor response to the different sound. Not something to get his hopes up over.
“Yeah . . .” Spike said, but his face told a different story . . . doubtful. Doubtful that anything he was doing now was making any difference at all. When Buffy first said something was wrong, Spike should’ve taken her to another hospital – if only there was another hospital in Sunnydale – or insisted on another doctor . . . gone and physically DRAGGED another doctor or two or three or however many it bloody well took into her room until someone found the problem. Now all he could do was sit at her bedside and talk to her, sing to her . . . cry for her, and hope.
Nurse Wanda laid a hand on Spike’s arm with a tender touch. “Don’t give up hope, William. God really does work in mysterious ways . . .”
Spike sighed heavily. He had pretty much given up on the PTB giving them any help at all. Maybe this was their way of punishing Buffy for dropping their favored son, Angel, to the bottom of the ocean . . . or of punishing Spike for any one of a thousand bloody sins.
What was that verse . . . something about giveth and taketh away . . . The PTB had given him two beautiful babies, but had they taken Buffy from him, from all of them? Was this their plan all along – giveth and taketh away? Spike was beginning to think that perhaps it was.
