Chapter Three: Broken

A week later...



"So...when can I leave?" Buffy smiled at the doctor at the side of her bed; she had a friendly face....and was the key to her freedom from this place so it was probably best to suck up to her.

Kate smiled at her; a fake, well-practised smile. "Not yet I'm afraid."

"Why? You need more tests? You've been testing me all week - hope I did better then in school!" Buffy laughed lightly, trying to make a funny then continued. "And hey, you know I have this great recovery rate; and I'd probably get it done better from home."

"Buffy, I'm not quite ready to do that yet." Kate smiled again and pulled a chair up to the bed, sitting down. "As you know we've been running a lot of tests, trying to work out what’s going on in there!"

Buffy tried to smile but it didn't come. A sense of foreboding spread through her veins. Suddenly the room seemed colder.

"You broke quite a few bones in the accident, most of which are healing nicely and we can expect a full recovery."

"M-most?" Buffy frowned at the phrase. "W-what do you mean, most?"

"I'm afraid your spinal chord and several of your vertebrae were damaged in the accident. This damage is most-likely irreversible." Pain shone clearly through the blue eyes of the young doctor. "You're paralysed from the waist down."

The room was silent.

Buffy opened and closed her mouth several times, her brain trying to work out whether the older woman had actually said what she thought she'd just said.

"I'm-but, I...no, you see I....NO. You see I heal quickly. This is just a momentary thing. I mean yeah it's never happened before, but I'll be up and movin' in a couple of days."

"Buffy-" The doctor tried to cut through, but the Slayer continued to babble.

"NO! Get Giles, Rupert Giles, he's just outside...he'll tell you." When Kate didn't move, Buffy's tone of voice became more shrill and insistent. "Get GILES!"

Kate was moving to stand up as the door opened.

"Buffy? Are you alright?"

Buffy sighed in relief at the sight of her Watcher in the doorway. "Giles, tell her how I recover fast. She's totally on the wrong track, and boy is your face gonna be red, lady. Tell her Giles." She demanded, her eyes trained on him.

"Buffy..." Giles' face fell at the pure look of pleading on his Slayer's face and his eyes dropped to the floor in shame.

"Giles, TELL HER. Come on, angry-puppy-dog catcher here...GILES." She shouted and his eyes snapped up to meet hers.

"Giles... Please."

Buffy shifted on the bed, her hands crushing each other as she watched tears fill her Watcher's eyes.

"Giles, tell her." Her voice quieted, reminiscent of a small girl and the older man felt his heart break just that bit more.

"I-I'm so sorry, Buffy."

"No...no..."

The world was spinning. Some-one was spinning the world. It was all screwed up; this wasn't right. God, please someone make it stop. This isn't real, not possible; fake.

She couldn't breathe....there wasn't enough air. Why wasn't there enough air, wasn't there meant to be some sort of endless supply?

"Doctor; help her!"

Giles' voice. Silly, Giles. He obviously was ill. Because she was fine. She was the Slayer. This sort of thing didn't happen to slayers. Faith bounced back didn't she?

They were lying to her. Just one big, old crappy Xander-joke. Well, it wasn't funny.

And there wasn't enough air. And the world was still spinning.

"...make it stop."

Giles watched from the doorway, a single tear sliding down his cheek, as the nurse injected his hysterical ward with a sedative and her body slowly calmed.

And finally she was asleep.

---

A further week later...



Giles turned over abruptly, smashing his fist into the too-soft pillow below him, before burying his head under it in an attempt to drown out the words that continued to torture his brain.

All he could feel was failure.

He sat behind his books and his regulations...

And none of it had helped. Not one jot. He'd never thought of anything like...this.

Vampires, Demons, Hell-on-earth......but not this.

His ward, his charge, his Slayer....his daughter.

All he could see was her face.

Begging.

Pleading.

“Please Giles...”

“But - I'm the Slayer.....”

“This doesn't happen to me....”

“I've been hit before; I was in LA - I WAS FINE THEN!!!”

“I can't live like this...”

“Please Giles...”

“Don't make me live like this!”

“What about all of your 'one girl' crap if a fucking truck can take my legs?!”

“This isn't happening...HELP ME!”

“Giles, please there has to be something, a spell - anything. You can't let me...”

“You can't...”



All he could hear was her voice.

And it was deafening.



---

A further two weeks later...

There was a light rap on the door before it opened and Dr. Walker popped her head around the wood. Joyce smiled politely at the younger woman's entrance, but the third body in the room didn't remove her eyes from the window and the outside world.

"Mind if I come in?" The blonde doctor smiled kindly, pushing the door open wider as she walked in, chart in hand.

"Not at all." Joyce answered, her eyes moving to Buffy. "Honey, the doctor’s here." She stated unnecessarily.

The Slayer barely lifted her eyes in acknowledgement before returning to stare out the window.

"Buffy, I hope you don't mind but I'm going to borrow your Mom for a minute." Kate's smile stayed firmly in place, but her eyes indicated to Joyce that it was serious.

"I'll just be a second sweetie, want me to bring you back anything?"

As expected, Buffy didn't answer.

---

The old, musty office was cluttered with papers and books. There was the odd picture on the wall and a couple of frames containing diplomas and degrees. The window was open, and the sun shone brightly into the surprisingly expansive room giving it an almost ethereal quality.

But for Joyce Summers, it felt like she'd just entered Hell.

"Mrs. Summers, Buffy has undergone significant physical trauma; of that we are all agreed. And while most of her external injuries are healing and will continue to do so, she is making no progress with the internal ones and at this rate I fear she may not."

Doctors. Another one. Dr. Something-or-other. She couldn’t remember his name. How many doctors had she watched attempt to her baby in the past month and a half? Half a dozen, a dozen, two? She couldn’t remember. Did it matter? She didn’t think so. Only one thing mattered. And she couldn’t do anything to help her.

"What are you saying?" Joyce asked the elderly psychiatrist, watching in agitation as he sat forward in his chair from behind the old, oak desk

"I have been working with Buffy for nearly four weeks." He stated. "Buffy has been used to a very active lifestyle. From her medical records I can see that the surprisingly few times she has been hurt her recovery has been speedy to say the least."

"Karate lessons..." Joyce murmured absently by way of explanation. As if it explained anything.

"Yes...however, this time, it seems, her body has been pushed to it's limit. I know this is hard for you and your family; we spoke earlier about possibility of Buffy returning to her 'normal self'." He lifted his hands to form quotation marks around the words 'normal self' and Joyce frowned.

"Exactly; I know you said these things take time...but Buffy has always been such a resilient child." Joyce said beseechingly; grasping at the arms of her chair. Knowing she was grasping at straws.

"I'm afraid, Mrs. Summers, there-in lies the problem." The doctor gazed across at her sympathetically. "It's easy to say there are different stages of recovery; grief, denial, retreat, anger, acceptance. However, the human psyche is not always something that is so easily categorized; every person is different. With your daughter she has always relied on her strength; her martial arts skills and her ability to recover quickly from injury. This has all suddenly been taken away from her. Her safety blanket is gone. Buffy is going to have to come to terms with the very real possibility that she may never walk again."

Joyce let out a silent sob at the declaration, hastily bringing her tissues up to her face.

"It’s going to take her a long time to get back to being herself again, isn't it?" Joyce asked tearfully.

"Nothing in psychology can be said in absolutes. The sooner she is able to accept the reality presented before her, the quicker she will heal. The same can be said for some of her physical ailments.

It is common for patients in circumstances like Buffy’s to become depressed, temperamental, prone to anxiety attacks and violent outbursts, and as we can observe from Buffy’s current state; silent and some-what unresponsive." The doctor spoke plainly, knowing that it would be only counterproductive if he were to mince his words.

"What can we do to help her?"

The elderly man smiled kindly, "Be there for her. Help her work through those tough periods; be a friend when she needs one. Be a mother when she needs one. To a certain extent an authority figure if, and when, she needs one."

There was a pause while Joyce let the information sink in. Had it really been a month ago that she was that normal mother to a vampire Slayer and a mystical key; the purpose of which they had yet to discover?

"I know this is a very difficult time for you and your family. You're going to have to be strong, be ready for her when she's ready to open up to life again."

*If she's ever ready to open up to life again...*


TBC...