Harris once told me that country music is the music of pain.

Just about the only thing the boy has been right about in the four years I've known him.

Song after song about pain and loss and loneliness.

None of them get through to her, though they seem to calm her so we keep playing them.

The others want to take her to a hospital, but what can mortal doctors do for her? She's been poisoned by a demon--we got that much out of her before she slipped away from us, driven into the depths of her own mind, into who knows what kind of nightmares.

I wonder if I play a part in any of them.

~~~~~

She fights him, but here she never wins. Here she has no strength, no skills.

Here she is just a girl.

He overpowers her, silencing her cries with a sweaty hand over her mouth, while the other one paws at her pajama pants, dragging them down her kicking legs.

She always fights, even thought it's always useless. He's big and determined and she's so confused. She tries to retreat to the real world, where she's strong and powerful and in control, but sometimes it's impossible.

Sometimes the pain and fear keep her anchored here, in this horrible place, which the doctors say is real.

~~~~~

Laying on her bed, curled into a ball, she suddenly thrashes her arms and legs, crying out wordlessly. I reach out to calm her and she knocks my hand away, her eyes wild.

"Buffy?" I whisper, hoping that I'm not imagining the spark in her eyes.

"He...he was hurting me," she whispers dully, slowly wrapping her arms around herself as her body begins to tremble. 

"Who, luv?"

I'm not sure she heard me, as she murmurs, "I can still feel him. I got away this time, but I can still feel him." One hand slides down her stomach to cover her groin.

"Is it the demon, Buffy?"

"...No such thing."

As my eyes widen in surprise, hers go unseeing again and my heart sinks as she drifts away.

~~~~~

"Uh...uh...tight...bitch...that's right...fuck me back, bitch."

Tears fill her eyes as she stares at the pillow clenched between her fingers and winces as his hairy stomach slaps against her bottom. She's back, back in her weak, helpless body.

Why can't she stay in the other place where she is warm and safe?

With him?

With Spike?

As the orderly rapes her, his grunts and hot breath hitting her back, his clammy hands squeezing her tender breasts, she tries to find her way back to a world where she finds pleasure in this act, on her hands and knees in Spike's bed, purrs of delight echoing from her as he bathes her body with kisses and fucks her with hard, deep strokes that make her burn. 

~~~~~

Three more hours have passed and all she does is lay there, limp as a noodle, totally unresponsive. Dawn just left, unable to bear to watch her anymore. The others have come and gone, each time trying to convince me to let them take her to the hospital.

I know that the only reason they don't just do so is that Dawn agrees with me.

Sitting huddled on her desk chair, my eyes fixed on her still form, I desperately want a smoke, but I can't leave her.

My constant attention and devotion is rewarded when her eyes widen and she gives me a slow smile.

"Spike..." She licks her lips, and I swallow convulsively. "I knew you wouldn't stay away, even when I told you it was over." As she sits up on her bed, her hands go to the buttons of her pajama top and begin to undue them.

I gape at her.

Seducing me with her eyes, she bares her breasts and lets the flannel shirt slide down her arms as she holds them out to me. I'm on my feet before I even realize it. "Make love to me."

"It's the poison," I stammer out. "You don't know what you're saying." But, my hands are tugging my shirt from my waistband and over my head as I speak.

She smiles and throws the shirt off the bed, then shimmies out of the matching bottoms, leaving her in a simple pair of white panties. From across the room, I can see how wet they are, and the hot scent of her arousal hits me hard in the face.

My clothes fly around the room as I divest myself of them and dive onto the bed next to her. "You have one chance to back out."

Wriggling against me, she reaches down and wraps her hand around my cock which leaps to life at her touch.

"Don't wanna."

Groaning helplessly, I cover her lips with mine and slide my fingers into the front of her panties.

And I feel her stiffen and slip away from me again.

~~~~~

It's always cold here, and she doesn't know how long it's been since she's felt truly warm. The clothes she wears all the time are thin and worn, just like she is, no layers of fat to warm her cold bones.

Methodically she pulls up her pants, trying to ignore the sticky fluid oozing down her legs. Her hands tremble as she tugs her top over her head, hiding the red finger marks on her small breasts.

Not even looking at the rumpled bed, she shuffles to a corner of her tiny room and slides to her knees. Her head thumps against the wall and her eyes close, hiding her away from the sterile emptiness that surrounds her.

Whimpering, she prays to slip away from here and back to the other world. It's gotten harder to be there, and she's not sure why that is, but it's still better than this place.

~~~~~

She's whimpering in my arms, but not from my fingers rubbing her clit. Her eyes fixate on my face, but she's not seeing me. Unable to bear the emptiness in her beautiful eyes, I duck my head between her legs, pull her panties aside, and begin to lick her.

Maybe I can bring her back this way. She always likes it when I suck her clitty.

It's so strange though. She doesn't move. Her sweet cream slides from her body onto my tongue, her pink folds swell beneath my touch, but she doesn't move. Fastening my lips around her hard little clit, I suck avidly, and tremors go through the thighs lying limply against my cheeks. More wetness spills from her, coating my chin, and I know she's come.

But she still doesn't move.

Tears fill my eyes and I let my head fall on her stomach. I'm helpless against whatever is stealing her from me.

"Come back to me, baby."

~~~~~

Her parents are there, and the doctor, talking to her and around her. Their words confuse her and she presses her hands to her ears. Her mother's gentle touch to the side of her face makes her moan and twitch away.

Gentleness is foreign to her.

She's hard and tough and unbreakable and she needs...she needs...

~~~~~

I feel fingers slide into my hair and I jerk my head up. Buffy smiles down on me, her lips curved seductively.

"Whatcha doing down there, Spike?" she asks, smirking, as her knees rub against my shoulders.

"Buffy?" I choke out, rising to my knees between her legs. Half sitting up, she reaches for my cock and it swells in her stroking hand.

"Fuck me," she croons, guiding me to her entrance. "Hard, like I like it."

I want to make love to her with all the tenderness I never do, but as her body sucks me into her heat, I fall victim as always to her needs, and slam my hips forward.

Her legs twine around my hips, her arms around my shoulders and she meets my next thrust, keening loudly. Unable to control myself, I grunt and thrust, my mind a red haze of lust, my body trembling in her arms.

"This is real, this is real," she begins to chant, over and over, her voice low and thready as her body moves with mine in a quick, demanding rhythm.

"Fuck...yes..." Grinding my teeth together, I fling my head back and stare unseeing at the ceiling as my cock throbs and my balls tighten. So close...

And she stops moving beneath me.

Faltering, I fall forward and find myself gazing again into her blank eyes. Horror fills me and my cock shrinks, slipping from her. With a shaking hand, I pat her cheek.

No response.

"No..."

~~~~~

"No," she howls as the orderlies drag her back to her room. They've put her in a straight jacket and she can't get free. "Spike, Spike!"

She wants to go back so desperately. Why does she keep coming here? It's all hard and painful here.

It can't be real.

...Can it?

~~~~~

Crouching over her, I lightly tap her cheek again and again, whispering her name, trying to bring her back. I don't hear the door open, but the startled gasp rings in my ears, and I quickly look over my shoulder, then scramble to tug the blanket over our naked bodies.

"Wh...what are you doing?" Dawn stammers, eyes wide in shock.

"'Bit, it's not what it looks like." This is nothing she should see. She's too young, too innocent.

She pales, then reddens, her fists clenching at her sides. "It looks like you're taking advantage of my sister, but..." She falters, her eyes filling with tears. "You wouldn't do that, you couldn't."

"No, I wouldn't, Dawn." Carefully I shift so that I'm sitting next to Buffy, the blanket pooling in my lap as I pull it over her breasts. "She was back with us--briefly--and she...she wanted this."

"Um...really?" The fists unclench and the fingers begin to fiddle with the hem of her skirt. "Are you two, y'know, together?"

Embarrassed for the first time in...what seems like eons, I drop my eyes and shake my head. "Dunno, Niblet."

"Oh." She fiddles with the cloth between her fingers some more, then backs through the doorway. "Try to bring her back again, please?"

~~~~~

They tell her she has to go back and face her friends and...denounce them, leave them... They don't say, but they
want her to kill them.

In the fantasy world she's supposed to kill her friends. In doing so, she'll leave that world forever. With them gone, there will be nothing to lure her back there, and here in the real world the doctors will be able to help her.

Here, with her mom and dad.

But no Dawn, no Willow, no Giles, no Angel, no Xander, no demons, no Hellmouth, no vampires, no...Spike.

She can't do that.

She's not sick. This place is wrong. It's wrong, not real.

She wants her world back.

~~~~~

"Why are you singing lullabies to me?"

Startled, I cut off in the middle of 'All the Pretty Little Horses', and stare down at her. I've got her cradled on my lap, rocking her like a baby, trying to bring her back.

Guess it worked.

"Stay." My voice is shockingly hoarse with emotion, and she sighs and snuggles deeper into my embrace.

"I want to. They want me to kill all of you, but they're the wrong ones. This is real."

"Huh?"

As she explains about the other world, the hospital, her parents, I try not to look skeptical.

A world without vampires?

Yeah, right.

"It's gotta be that demon," she adds. "We have to find it, so that it can cure me of whatever it pricked me with."

I cock my scarred eyebrow and give her a smirk. She hits me across the chest, and I feel relief flood me.

"Just give me a description, luv, and I'll haul its ass back here and make it sing."

Then it'll be time for the Scooby Gang to prove their usefulness.

~~~~~