by AntigoneUnbound » Thu Apr 24, 2003 2:46 pm
Gods Served and Abandoned
Disclaimers:
I own everything both tangible and abstract that the universe could ever hope to contain. I’m also delusional a fair amount of the time, so that last part should probably be taken w/ a sizable grain o’ salt.
Spoilers:
Up to season 5. I’ve played slightly with the timing of a certain Big Bad’s appearance, with some implications for Dawn’s entrance.
Rating:
R for now; if it changes, I’ll give heads-up.
Distribution:
Sure, with acknowledgement.
Feedback:
Yes;
yes;
YES!!!
Wow…that was incredible…
This scene is fairly intense. I hope that I do it justice.
*****
Part 25
*****
Not again. I can’t do this again.
The smells were unmistakable, inexorable. When you left, they clung to you, reminders of your own vulnerability. How many hours had she spent in a place like this? How many hours had she lost track of, one following the other with growing sameness until 3pm was indistinguishable from 8am? She could have easily told them where the vending machines were; where the bathrooms were; where to find the shaded little area outside where people went to pretend that they were just enjoying a breath of fresh air, like all the anonymous other people that they now envied.
She didn’t say all of this, though. Instead, she sat quietly across from Joyce’s daughters, holding Willow’s hand. She could feel her girlfriend’s agitation and fear; it radiated from her in periodic bursts of helpless energy.
When they had first left for the hospital, tumbling into two cars, they knew only that Joyce had collapsed and been taken to the hospital. She carried several different contact numbers for Buffy, Giles included. That was all they knew.
But now, watching the physician walking toward them, her white jacket almost glaring under the fluorescent lights, Tara knew more than the others. She knew more than she wanted to. She had seen that face before, on a different doctor, and though she didn’t know the details, she did know that in a matter of seconds Buffy and Dawn would be thrust into a new reality.
"You’re Mrs. Summers’ daughters?" the doctor asked, her tone suggesting that she already knew the answer based on the two young women who had disentangled themselves from the others and now stood before her.
"Yeah—yes. I’m Buffy, and this is my sister Dawn."
She lives by protecting others, killing the things that go bump in the night. How will she endure this?
"I’m Dr. Santiago. I’m a neurosurgeon here. A neighbor who was supposed to have coffee with your mother got worried when she didn’t answer the door. She looked in through the window and saw your mother laying on the floor. She called the ambulance."
Don’t draw this out. Please. Let them know.
"It appears that your mother suffered a massive stroke. I suspect she had no warning, because there’s no evidence that she was trying to reach the phone."
She could see from their expressions that they were still untold leagues away from grasping what they were being told. "Stroke" was bad, it was scary, but people survived. They hadn’t let the "massive" make it through their filters, though. More than anything, this was their mother, which meant that she would be with them for many, many years. This was their reality, and she knew that children don’t easily accept new truths about their parents.
"But she’s going to be OK, right?" Dawn had crossed her arms, her tone practically daring the woman in front of her to contradict her.
"I’m so sorry, but your mother experienced extensive damage to her brain and her heart. She must have gone several minutes without breathing. We worked on her for a long time, trying to save her."
She saw that Buffy had gone stark white; even her lips looked pale. "What—what are you saying?"
The doctor’s eyes, she could see now, were kind, and exhausted. She’s had to do this so many times before, and she keeps thinking she should find a better way to do it.
"We did manage to establish a pulse, and we now have her on total life support, but I’m afraid that there’s no way she could breathe on her own. Your mother is clinically brain dead."
And there was the D word; only this time it hid behind a qualifier, unwilling to collect its ransom openly. It lurked behind another word, and that partial obscuring would let hope linger for at least a few minutes more.
Giles, she noticed, had reached out to brace himself against a wall. He never told her. Did he know himself? Before this moment?
Tears were streaming down Willow’s face, and she didn’t bother to wipe them. She reached out one hand as if to touch Buffy’s back, but then paused, hovering indecisively. Turning, she burrowed into Tara’s arms and wept soundlessly.
Xander just stood mutely, shaking his head. Anya stared first at him, and then at the doctor, her gaze becoming sad and frightened.
And Buffy and Dawn just gripped each other’s hands as if they could fuse their pulses into one and give it to their mother.
"But she is breathing?" Dawn asked, her voice almost insistent. "She’s still alive?"
"Only in the most minimal, technical sense. Machines are breathing for her. They’re pumping her blood. She has no brain activity of any kind."
"Are you—are you saying that our mother has no chance at recovery?" Buffy’s voice, though it seemed to come from far away, was remarkably steady.
"I’m taught never to make absolute predictions about life and death," Dr. Santiago replied slowly, "but the chances of your mother awakening are virtually negligible. It would constitute a miracle, in my opinion."
"Then let’s get another opinion," Dawn blurted desperately.
"You can certainly do that. I encourage it, in fact. Believe me, if another physician says that there’s a better outlook for your mother, I would be so happy to be wrong."
But you’re not wrong. You know you’re not wrong.
"Doctor, if you’re right…if our mother has no realistic chance of recovery, what—" Buffy stopped, closing her eyes. "What should we do?"
Dr. Santiago replied evenly, "The machines are keeping her alive at this point. It will be your decision whether to maintain that or to have us take her off of those machines."
"And if we do? Take her off the machines?" The words were practically a whisper.
"The overwhelming likelihood is that she would die within a short time; probably a matter of hours."
"No!" Dawn shouted. Several people turned to stare at her in voyeuristic curiosity. "No, we won’t do it! We can’t!" She grabbed her sister by the wrists. "We can’t do that, Buffy!"
"Dawn, we’ll get a second opinion. We’ll—we’ll talk about it and figure out what to do." She looked back at the doctor. "We…we have time, right?" Tara saw the compassion behind the doctor’s quick nod; she suspected Buffy did as well. Time, they most certainly did have.
"Would you like me to suggest another physician you could talk to about this? I really do encourage you to seek another opinion."
"Yes…thank you," Buffy replied. The doctor quickly scribbled the information on a notepad that she produced from her jacket.
"Dr. Brunard has been in practice for over twenty years. He works at St. John’s. He’s a highly respected neurosurgeon, and he’ll be honest and direct with you."
"Thank you," Buffy repeated automatically.
"And this is how you can reach me," Dr. Santiago continued, adding her own name and pager number to the sheet.
Thank you for not saying "Here’s my card." Mom’s oncologist did that and I wanted to choke the breath right out of him.
Buffy looked up suddenly. "Where is she? Can we see her?"
"Of course. I’ll show you the way." She nodded toward the hallway from which she had first emerged.
Buffy turned to face them. "Dawn and I are going to see Mom," she said simply, and then turned back to follow the doctor.
*****
The rest of the day was a hazy, surreal combination of frenetic activity and waiting. The group left the hospital, minus Buffy and Dawn, a little over an hour after the doctor had delivered the news. Tara and Willow went to the store and bought lunch-meats and other sources of quick meals, using the key that Willow had been given years ago to enter the house and put the perishables in the refrigerator. They also made a lasagna that Buffy and Dawn could heat up for that evening. And they tried to call Hank Summers. After two failed attempts from the hospital pay phone, Buffy had asked them to continue trying to contact her father.
"What do you want us to tell him, exactly?" Willow asked anxiously.
"Tell him he’s exactly the prick I’ve been thinking he is," Buffy muttered, looking over her shoulder to ensure that Dawn hadn’t overheard them. But her sister was still gazing at their mother, silent and unmoving among the artificial creatures that did the work of living for her.
Then she shook her head. "Just tell him what happened. If he asks what he should do—and that would be a first—tell him to let me know when I can reach him and I’ll go over everything with him." She looked back toward their mother’s room. "I—I wanna get back in there with Mom and Dawn."
"Of course," they’d answered in unison. "Do you think you’ll be home later?" Willow added.
"What? Oh, yeah. Hospital visiting hours are over at 8. We should be home a little after that." And then she had left to sit with her mother.
At a little past 8:30, Tara heard them come through the door. If they were talking to each other, it was inaudible to her. She listened to the staccato-burst of Dawn’s footsteps as she pounded up the stairs to her room.
"Buffy? Dawn?" Willow called out, looking up from the homework that Tara knew she really wasn’t seeing.
Buffy walked slowly into the kitchen, dropping her bag onto the floor as if it had become the final piece of a burden she could no longer carry. She sank onto a stool near the counter. Her eyes weren’t red; they were vacant, and exhausted.
"How are you? How’s your mom?" Willow’s anxiety tumbled out of her in the form of her questions. Tara said nothing.
"Mom is…Mom is in a coma and I don’t think she’s going to wake up." And in saying the words, Tara saw, Buffy came to believe them and she watched the proud Slayer crumple before her, wrapping her arms around herself as if afraid to trust anyone else’s grasp and weeping noiselessly into the abyss of her self-embrace.
Willow started forward as if to take Buffy into her arms, but then she hesitated, perhaps sensing, as Tara did, that Buffy needed them near her, but not touching her.
Some part of her is always alone. Is it right to try to break through that? Does it help her do what she has to do?
So they watched, pain etched across their own faces, as Buffy convulsed with sobs; throughout, she made no sound. When she stopped, she did so abruptly, as if deciding that it served no purpose to continue. She stood and walked mutely to the sink, lowering her face to splash cold water over it with methodical sweeps.
"What—what about the second opinion?" Willow asked hesitantly.
She wants to make it better. With everything she’s seen, she doesn’t really understand that people can die of ordinary things like strokes and cancer. She hasn’t seen that kind of death yet.
Buffy just shook her head. "I reached Dr. Brunard. He’s going to come by in the morning and check on her, and talk to Dr. Santiago. But when I explained what she’d said, he pretty much confirmed the outlook. He said that when the brain is deprived of oxygen for the amount of time that Mom probably was, there’s rarely anything to be done. The body can be kept alive, but the person’s mind is just…gone." The last word was uttered as if a pronouncement.
"Buffy, I’m so sorry," Willow whispered. "I wish…Oh God, I wish I could do something."
"You’re a witch," Buffy replied, her voice expressionless. "Can you undo this?"
Oh sweet goddess, no…Don’t—please don’t ask those things of us. Don’t ask them of anyone.
But then the Slayer gave a mirthless smile. "Aside from that, you’re doing everything you can."
Thank you. Because if I wouldn’t do it for my own mother, I wouldn’t do it for yours.
"And Dawn?" Tara managed to say. "She must be a wreck."
"Right now she’s angry. I think that’s probably easier for her to handle than being sad."
"Angry?" Willow echoed, mystified. "About this happening?"
"Oh, I’m sure that’s in there somewhere," Buffy replied, shaking her head. "Dawn’s never too far from being pissed about something. Mostly, though, she’s angry with me."
"For what?" From the tone in Willow’s voice, Tara knew that her beloved was feeling protective of her best friend.
Buffy was silent for several moments. "She’s angry because she knows that if there really isn’t any chance for Mom to recover, I’ll want to take her off the machines." She turned and looked at them evenly. "Does that make me a heartless, ungrateful daughter?"
"Oh God, no, Buffy!" Willow’s reply was immediate, and forceful. "You’re an incredible person; an incredible daughter. How can you think such a thing?"
Buffy didn’t answer; instead, she gazed at Tara, her expression unreadable. "Tara, I notice you haven’t voted on the subject."
Tara held her gaze. "Did your mother ever say what she wanted? Did she ever talk about something like this?"
Buffy nodded. "As a matter of fact, she did. Her cousin was in a car accident, about three years ago. I only met him twice, but they were pretty close growing up. He was on life-support for over a year. Mom visited him three or four times—if you can call them visits," she added bitterly. "She said he just wasted away. He had to be turned in bed to keep from getting bedsores...He just lay there, hour after hour. She said—she said that if anything like that ever happened to her, she didn’t want to be kept alive like that. She said she didn’t want to run up a gigantic hospital bill if she couldn’t enjoy the fine cuisine." Buffy smiled sadly, even as a shudder rippled through her.
"Then I think you’re being the daughter she needs you to be," Tara replied, feeling that she could now give an answer she believed in. "Does Dawn know about this?" she continued.
"I tried to explain on the way home, but she wouldn’t listen. She refuses to even think about Mom not waking up. When I tried to talk about it, she just said I was giving up on Mom." She swallowed heavily. "I think that if I hadn’t been driving, I would have slapped her. Which makes me glad I was driving," she added.
"Did your mom leave any kind of living will? Anything that would make her wishes clear?" Willow asked reluctantly.
"I don’t think so," Buffy replied heavily. "I know she made her will, but I’m pretty sure she didn’t include anything to cover something like this." She dropped her head again. "I can’t even believe I’m having this conversation," she whispered.
After a moment, Tara ventured quietly, "Buffy, do you mind if I go up and talk to Dawn? Or just see if she wants to talk?"
Buffy didn’t look up as she answered, "No, that’s good. You’re probably one of the few people she’d actually want to see at this moment. God knows I’m not."
Tara allowed her hand to slide quickly over Buffy’s shoulder as she walked past her. As she made her way up the stairs, she could hear her beloved and the Slayer talking in low, disjointed tones.
She paused briefly in front of Dawn’s door, considering the huge "Keep Out!" sign. It was just like Dawn, she realized—hoping to convey an air of guardedness even as its very presence practically begged you to take a closer look. She knocked lightly once, and then again.
"Go away," came the sullen reply.
"Dawn, it’s me—Tara." She heard Dawn blow her nose, and then the door swung open. Dawn’s face, she thought, was a whirling mosaic of anger, grief, shock, and fear.
"Can I come in?" she asked quietly, not wanting to take the door-opening as a tacit invitation.
"Yeah." Dawn stepped aside to let Tara in. Looking around quickly, Tara noticed a large Justin Timberlake poster tacked up inches away from an even larger "Xena" one.
"Dawnie, I’m so sorry about your mom; about her stroke," Tara began.
"She’s going to get better," Dawn cut in, her tone suggesting that anyone who disagreed was simply mistaken.
"I hope so," Tara replied carefully. "But what if she doesn’t?"
"She’s going to!" Anger washed over the teenager like handfuls of hot water. "That other doctor is coming tomorrow and he’ll be able to tell us stuff this one couldn’t. He’ll spot something she missed."
"I really hope so, Sweetie," Tara repeated. "That would be wonderful. But Dawn—what if he doesn’t?"
Dawn glared at her, tears forming at the perceived betrayal. "I thought that you of all people would be on my side, Tara. You know what Buffy wants to do? If this doctor says the same thing, Buffy wants to let Mom die!"
Tara struggled to keep her voice even. "Dawn, do you really think that’s what Buffy wants to do? Or is that what she knows she should do, based on what your mother told her?"
"I never heard that conversation," Dawn retorted.
Because you didn’t exist at the time. But she only replied, "Do you think she’s lying?"
Dawn just turned away, shrugging her shoulders.
"Do you think for one instant that Buffy wouldn’t move heaven and earth to make your mom better?" she continued. "Because if you don’t, you don’t know your sister very well. And I think you actually know her better than pretty much anybody."
After a long silence, Dawn muttered through clenched teeth, "Maybe she just doesn’t want the inconvenience of having to care for an invalid mother. It would get in the way of her slaying duties."
With that, patience give way to anger.
Enough, dammit! I’ve had enough!
She reached out and spun Dawn around to face her. "Listen, Dawn—you’re not the only one hurting in this household. Your older sister is downstairs trying to hold it together because something awful has happened to your mother and your father is AWOL and she’s terrified, Dawn—absolutely terrified. So if you’re so hell-bent on everyone giving you a little more credit for your maturity, this would be a damn fine time to show it."
Dawn looked at her, eyes wide and disbelieving. "Are you telling me you would’ve let your mom die? That you would have pulled the plugs and just let her die?"
Pain ripped through her. Ah, goddess—will it always hurt like this?
She gripped Dawn’s shoulders. "I did let my mother die! She went through so much chemotherapy, so much radiation that by the end there was practically nothing left of the woman I knew…nothing except her eyes and her smile and her mind, and she used that mind to decide she wanted to come home and die there. Do you think that’s what I wanted? You think I wouldn’t have walked to hell and back just to see her smile at me one more time? But she knew what she wanted, and she could decide for herself. Your mom doesn’t have her mind, Dawn. Her mind is already gone. Except she told Buffy what she wanted, and now you have to grow up even more and face that fact."
She could feel Dawn trembling under her hands. Or was it her hands that were shaking, rippling through to the slender frame before her? It was a moot point, though, because Dawn had thrown her arms around Tara’s back and buried her face in her shoulder. Sobs wracked her young frame; unlike her sister, though, Dawn’s cries were fierce and unmistakable.
"I can’t lose her," she finally managed. "I just can’t."
But you will, Tara thought sadly, even as she murmured, "I know, Sweetie…I know…"
*****
To Be Continued
Edited by: AntigoneUnbound at: 4/24/03 9:06:26 pm
(Oh Gawd how I wanted to double-post just in hopes of seeing the tiniest bead of consternation...but you're too cool for that I know!)
)
I hope I'm not too unpopular for this opinion...but I gotsta stand fer somethin'!
Right back at you kid.
. As Buffy pointed out her being not overly nice to Dawn has little to do with knowing that she's the key, it's standard sister behaviour 
at: 4/21/03 2:28:06 am
, not only have she been so unfairly bullied since young, but she's found out that her mom isn't the MOM she believed she was (i think that hurt me more than anything- even when Donnie punched and treatened her in the barn). hrm....I wonder if such traumatic experience would bring her nightmares......
) is the fact that Donnie, Nathan and Beth are so.....human. They are the products of their pasts. It's not Beth's 'fault' she was a bitch to Tara, it's not Nathan's 'fault' he didn't care about his...'daughter' - he's just a dis-illusioned hopeless fool believing he's doing the right thing. It's 
We all know the place those words come from, and we all know how hard it is to let them go.