Requiem For A Dream
by HDGenscher
Turning My Back On The Abyss
[reviews]
TITLE: Requiem For A Dream [2/?] - The Dreamer - Turning My Back On The Abyss
AUTHOR: HD_Genscher
RATING: PG-13
PAIRING: B/W
DISCLAIMER: All characters and places belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, et al.
ARCHIVE: HD's Fan Fiction Archive, http://www.wiffy.de/hdffa/
FEEDBACK: If you liked it, I'll appreciate your feedback. And if you didn't like it, it'll help me a lot if you point out what I did wrong.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Real life's been a bitch lately and I didn't have time to work on the third chapter at all, but I decided to post chapter two of this story anyway. Enjoy!
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Chapter 2.
TURNING MY BACK ON THE ABYSS
'Say something, Willow,' I think to myself. We're standing near the doorframe, Buffy's hands still on my shoulders. She's looking at me expectantly and a bit puzzled, waiting for an explanation for my sudden outburst. But I don't think it would be good to blurt out the truth. 'I've dreamt of you all my life, and now I finally met you. Do you wanna be my friend?' No, can't say that. Instead we should take it slow. Last night's 'Will you hold my hand until I'm asleep' sure is in the plus column for building a friendship, but you have to earn someone's trust before becoming friends, and I begin to feel that sneaking up on her like I did wasn't exactly inspiring confidence in the first place. What if she doesn't want to be my friend? But why'd she have this 'Aaah, girlfriend!' look on her face then? Whoa, wait a minute... Girlfriend? Where did that come from? I blush at the thought. 'Will you please say something now?'
"I-I'm Willow," I stammer with a sniffle. 'See, wasn't that hard, right?' No, but could you please stop commenting on everything, brain?
Buffy smiles, quickly produces a tissue from somewhere, and starts wiping away my tears.
God, I must be looking awful.
"You're not," she says. Oops, guess I thought aloud. I smile at her gratefully.
Smiling is good, I encourage myself. And now, what? Why don't I show her around?
Melissa has been watching the whole scene with a quizzical smile on her face. First she seemed to be surprised at my regained ability to speak, but now... I don't know what to think of the way she's looking at the scene in front of her.
"Why don't you show Buffy around after breakfast, Willow," she suggests.
'Hey, that was my idea!' I think and suddenly I'm a bit mad at her.
"I'd love that," Buffy replies, and that answer all makes it up with Melissa again. Buffy would love it! Yay! I'm really looking forward to showing Buffy around now, but first... breakfast!
I love breakfast, with fresh bread, strawberry jam and cold milk. Of course we don't have either of those, this isn't a luxury hotel after all, but having breakfast with Buffy, in her white bathrobe, her hair still wet from the shower, is heaven. 'I'd like to start every day like this, from now on,' I think and smile at her. She smiles back at me and finishes her third sandwich. (Guess she burns a lot of calories when she hunts those baddies...)
After bringing our trays back to the small cart in the hallway, I take Buffy by the hand and show her the ward, from the locked entrance ("It's locked at all times and only opened when someone arrives or leaves.") to the bathroom ("Well, you know this one already...").
With only ten patient rooms, and a couple of others, one would expect the tour to be over quickly, but I slip in as much as I know about what the different rooms are used for, just to be at her side a bit longer.
Buffy patiently endures my flood of words, her eyes darting back and forth between the different doors and the hallway. 'Looking for potential escape routes?' I wonder. 'Well, as long as you take me with you...' She even asks a couple of questions, mostly regarding the routine on the ward.
Melissa and Barbara, the other nurse on the ward and a stout and resolute woman, are in the nurses station when we reach it, preparing the medication for the evening. Melissa smiles upon hearing my explanations ("And this is the nurses station. If you need something, go here and just ask..."), then continues labeling the small drug tubs her colleague prepared and checking them off on a list as we move on into the rear part of the ward.
This is where the common room is located. It's a large room opening towards the hallway, equipped with a couple of comfortable couches, low tables and a TV. So far, we haven't met any of the other patients, but just as I expected, Chess Girl is here. At least that's what I call her, and ashamed I have to admit that I can't remember her name.
Chess Girl, a mousy blonde of about 14 years, is sitting at the chess board, as usual. She's staring at the board with her fingertips pressed against each other, her facial expression one of extreme concentration. I've played her once or twice, and I must say that she's quite good. (Yes, I lost.) But then again I think she's been playing all her life, so that's not really unexpected.
If she doesn't have a partner, she's playing herself, like now, and when she's beaten herself, she just starts over again. Don't know how she does that, though. I mean, she must know what she's up to. I imagine that it's quite difficult for her to trick herself, unless she doesn't know anymore what she's doing when she's the 'other' player...
"May I do the next move?" I offer.
She slowly looks up at us as if she just awoke from a trance or something, but then she nods, despite the grim expression on her face. She's not talking at all, just like I was, and I guess she didn't even notice that what I just did is unusual, at least from what she knows about me.
I think hard for a while, then move the white knight so it's threatening her queen. Her face lights up and she smiles at me. "Good move, I guess," I whisper to Buffy who has been watching the whole scene in awe.
"I'm Buffy," she says and offers her hand to Chess Girl, who ignores it completely.
"She's playing day in and day out. Don't know why, though..." I whisper to Buffy, who's looking a bit flabbergasted at Chess Girl's ignorance. Suddenly I remember her name, and so I add, "...and her name's Caroline."
"Poor girl," is her whispered comment.
"I just call her Chess Girl, though," I continue with a sheepish grin as we move along.
"Guess that fits..."
"Anyway, that was the common room. We're allowed to hang out here as long as we want, 'til 10pm."
"Wow, there's even a TV..."
"Yeah. Although finding a show that all wanna watch can be a little bit difficult someti..."
"Hey Arielle, found your voice again?" the one patient that I least hoped to meet interrupts me. It's Marcie, a rather sturdy girl with short black hair. She thinks she's kind of a leader as far as the patients are concerned, and believe me, she's very keen to prove that to you, time and time again.
"Yeah," I say cautiously, feeling a bit embarrassed. "But my name's Willow."
I quickly glance at Buffy. She's got a 'Of course, that explains a lot' expression on her face, quickly replaced by one of confusion. 'Why did she start talking again when she saw me?' she's probably wondering now. Guess I have to talk to her, and soon.
"I'm glad, sweetie," Marcie says with a slightly ironic undertone. 'Don't sweetie me!' I protest, and I can see Buffy frown at Marcie's tone. She's already noticed something, I guess.
"Thanks, Marcie," I respond quickly and try to drag Buffy along.
"Don't you want to introduce yourself, Blondie?" Marcie turns to Buffy, blocking our way and ruining my attempt to avoid a confrontation between the two.
"Not until you introduce yourself first, Blackie..." Buffy answers, obviously unimpressed by the girl's behavior.
The two are glaring at each other, neither one willing to give in and look away, and for a moment I'm afraid they might start fighting or we'll be standing here for hours.
I hold my breath, but both to my great surprise and relief, Marcie turns away. "Big mouth, Blondie," she says over her shoulders as she goes back to her room opposite of the common room. "You'll regret that, both of you," she threatens us, and slams the door behind her.
"Tha-that was Marcie," I stammer. Buffy turns around at the fright in my voice. She's looking straight into my eyes now, and I can see an expression of concern and compassion in hers, mixed with determination, causing my heart to pound in my chest.
'Oh my god, if she's looking at me like this any longer, I'm gonna get all fuzzy and fainty,' I think to myself.
"Don't be afraid, Willow," she says with a soothing, confident voice. "She's just worrying about her position as the alpha female... She's not going to touch you, or I'll..." She grinds her teeth and continues, "Forget her. Show me the rest of the ward?"
"Sure," I say with as much self-confidence as possible, not wanting to look like a complete scaredy-cat, and smile at her thankfully for her... Well, what was it anyway? A declaration of friendship? A defensive alliance? 'Buffy hereby declares that she will defend Willow, should she be attacked by a third party...' I chuckle at the thought, and Buffy gives me an admiring glance. Guess I really convinced her that I'm not afraid of Marcie.
As I show her the rest of the ward with newfound enthusiasm, I tell Buffy about the other patients, Pamela with her eating disorder in the room next to ours, Moony Girl (her actual name is Monica) who was committed to the ward because of a suicide attempt and who's in another ward at the moment because she tried it again about two weeks ago, and the others.
"And finally, this..." My voice trails off when I notice that Buffy's not listening anymore. She's walked past where I stopped, and is standing at the rear window, the one opening onto the backyard. She's looking very serious now, the smile that had been on her face about my enthusiasm completely gone. Curious about what she can see from there, I walk over to her, and understand immediately. About sixty yards away from the house, behind a meadow of withering grass and encircled in an rusty iron fence, is a small cemetery.
"Cemeteries give you the creeps, huh?" I softly ask, thinking of my dreams--Buffy sneaking over seemingly endless numbers of cemeteries, fighting for her life and killing the forces of darkness. She frowns again, this time at my question.
"W-what?"
'Danger, Will Rosenberg, danger!' I remind myself. 'You're not supposed to know anything about how she feels about cemeteries...'
"Well, they do for me, and so I thought..." I explain hastily.
"Yeah... yeah, you're right. They're giving me creeps." Her look finally breaks away from the graveyard.
"Sorry, where were we?"
I point to the large door with the conspicuous electronic lock. "This door leads to the staircase," I explain. "There's another ward on the floor above, and a couple of therapy rooms and the doctor's rooms in the adjacent wing."
Buffy takes a closer look at the numeric keypad. "Combination?" she asks concisely.
"Dunno," I reply, then add, "But it's five digits."
"Well... you never know when you might need it," she quickly adds at my curious look.
At that moment, the door is flung open from the other side, and Moony Girl steps through it, a rather happy expression on her face that for once replaced her usually dreamy one. She's followed by a grumpy nurse with ash-blonde hair, approximately in her late forties, carrying a bag that's probably containing Moony's stuff. Although we've quickly retreated to the end of the hallway, near the rear window, the nurse immediately catches sight of us with her cold, piercing eyes. "Don't you have an elsewhere to be," she barks. Without waiting for an answer, she leads Moony Girl down the hallway and into the nurses station, and closes the door behind them.
We look at each other, and I can't help a shiver.
"Scary," Buffy comments. With that, Buffy expresses exactly the same I'm thinking at the moment. "I'm glad we have Melissa."
"Yeah," I agree. "Guess Moony's back and better, then," I continue.
Buffy just growls in approval, and walks to the door at the left of the rear window we've been standing at. "What's in here?" she asks.
"It's an unused storeroom, I think... And that kinda concludes our tour," I tell her with regret in my voice.
"Thanks, you've been a great guide," she says with a sweet smile that makes me go all fuzzy again. I beam with joy and blush.
The door to the nurses station opens again. Barbara and Moony come out first and go straight to Moony's old room. Melissa emerges from the room, followed by the grumpy nurse, who says something about having a smoke and going home afterwards because she's got the afternoon off as she has to do something later that I can't make out. She disappears through the main exit at the other side of the ward, whereas Melissa takes the other direction and approaches us. "Here you are... Willow, you didn't forget your creative therapy, didn't you?"
I look at the wall clock above the nurses station's entrance. "Whoops," I just say, realizing that I should've been at my usual appointment with Dr. Penn since ten minutes.
Of course I had been wrong about the lack of available therapies in my (non-talking) case. There's music therapy (I'm glad they don't have a piano, though, or I probably would be forced to play...), which is quite relaxing because I mainly had to listen to some classical music, and movement expression therapy, but somehow, creative therapy has turned out to be my favorite. It's fun to create things with clay, to create something with my own hands out of this shapeless clod, without having to worry about getting dirty. ('Willow, what have you been doing? Did you and Xander get dirty again? What have I told you about girls not playing in the dirt?') Plus, it reminds me of kindergarten, and thus happier times. Lately, I proceeded to working with soapstone.
"No problem. We can go there right now, and Buffy can accompany us," Melissa remarks and turns to Buffy. "Dr. Marks wants to see you, Buffy."
She leads us to the door and quickly types in the combination, concealing the keypad with her body. Beep-beep-beep-beep-beep. Five digits. I look at Buffy, who's standing a bit to the side. Maybe she's seen a part of the combination?
I can't ask her, though, as Melissa quickly guides us into the staircase, and down the stairs. The wing of the clinic we've just entered holds the physician's rooms and all kinds of therapy rooms, all arranged along a long corridor. We walk past a couple of doors, and I reach my destination. Melissa and Buffy walk on, and I give her an encouraging smile when she looks back at me before they disappear around a corner where, as I recall from memory, Dr. Marks's office is located.
I breathe deeply, then knock on the door, open it and enter Dr. Penn's room.
"I've been waiting for you, Willow," Dr. Penn, an elderly woman with a tall and slender figure, welcomes me. Her hair is grey already and arranged around her head in a strange fashion. It reminds me of a bird's nest every time, and I have to resist bursting into laughter.
"I'm sorry, Dr. Penn," I just say.
"I've heard that you've spoken for the first time this morning." She raises from the chair behind her desk and comes over to me. "That's a great step forward!" She smiles at me and puts her hand on my shoulder.
"Thanks."
"I'm sure Dr. Marks will want to talk to you as soon as possible. But for now, go on with your figurine."
I walk over to one of the desks in the room, the one that's been assigned to me, and sit down. On it, next to some of the small bowls and fantasy figurines that I made from clay is the larger soapstone figurine I've been working on during the past weeks. Working with soapstone is different from clay. With clay you form your object out of the material, taking parts of the clod of clay and adding them step-by-step until the object is complete, whereas with soapstone, it's all about removing the unnecessary material until you've uncovered the figurine that's kind of hidden in the soapstone already.
My figurine's almost done now. All that's left for me to do is the lower part of the legs and the feet. Picking a file from the desk, I start removing the unnecessary soapstone to form the figurine's feet.
Once it's done, my figurine will be about one foot tall, standing at the edge of its cubic pedestal, looking down into the abyss. Think about that whatever you want, but that's the first thing that came to my mind when I thought about what could be awaiting its uncovering in my block of soapstone.
I don't know how long I've been working when someone knocks at the door. Dr. Penn looks up from the book she's been reading and says, "Come in." The door opens and Dr. Marks comes in. "Jeffrey, what can I do for you?" Dr. Penn greets him.
"Andrea, may I talk to Willow for a moment?" he asks.
"Sure," she nods.
"How are you?" he asks me while sitting down on the edge of my desk.
"Fine... I guess," I reply, put down my file and straighten up on my chair.
"Wanna talk about something?"
"Hmmm..." I pretend to be pondering his question, then add, "No."
"Don't get me wrong, this is a great progress that you seem to have made in the last few days, but I'd like to understand why you're talking again," he explains and looks at me.
Understand...what? Understand that the most important person in my life finally is a part of said life? Understand that for the first time in a long, long time I don't feel like I'm going through life alone?
"May I ask you something, Dr. Marks?" I ask instead of answering his question.
"Sure..."
"How's Buffy?"
"You seem to care a lot about her..."
Uh oh, I guess Melissa told him what happened.
"I feel that she's very important for me," I answer firmly.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
I remain silent.
"No," I finally say, staring at a point at the opposite wall.
"Willow, you can trust me. You can tell me everything." Thus spoke the snake, and darted its tongue. Twice.
"I--I can't." I begin to feel really uncomfortable at his inquiries. 'Please stop it,' I plead with my eyes.
"Okay," he says. Obviously he felt my unease. I smile at him gratefully. I begin to understand that this is almost like a chess game, move after move, offering or giving something and getting something else in return.
"What's her problem?" I ask, feeling that I deserve getting something in return for what I offered to him.
"What?"
"Buffy, what's her problem?" I repeat, not going to give up so easily.
"Willow, you know that I can't talk to you about other patients. Medical secrecy, you know?" I should've know that he'd come up with that.
"Sure," I say with a pout. Kneading my lower lip, I ask, "Did she do something?"
"I guess you could look it up in a paper in no time, anyway..." he answers with a sigh. "She burnt down the gym of her former high school and got expelled. She seems to be a bit bewildered."
"She's not bewildered!" I blurt out, thinking that she certainly had reasons for doing what she did.
'Reasons? She's a lunatic, and she'll draw you into her world, into a sea of flames...'
'What if I'm drawn to the fire?'
'She's no company for you...she'll be your doom, daughter!'
'If that's what she is, I'm gonna embrace my doom, and now shut up, father!'
I'm grateful that he doesn't inquire about my outburst. Instead he just looks at me for a while.
"Willow, the medical secrecy I talked about... It applies to you as well. I'm not going to tell anyone, including your parents, what you tell me if you don't want me to." Seems he's not going to give up either.
"I understand. But... it's all new for me... just give me some time, okay?"
"Okay, Willow..."
He raises from the desk and shakes my hand. "It's been nice talking to you."
"Same here."
"Standing at the abyss?" he adds with a knowing glance at the figurine on the desk.
I think about the progress he's been talking about. Yeah, I guess he's right. I'm talking again, and that sure is a sign for me being on the road to recovery. Plus, I met Buffy, and we're well on the way to becoming friends...
Acting on the spur of the moment I turn the figurine around so it's now standing with the back to the imaginary abyss. Taking some of the clay that's in a box on my desk, I form a small flower out of it and carefully place it in the center of the pedestal. Now it's looking as if the figurine is looking down on that flower.
"No more," I say, and he smiles. "No more," I repeat to myself as he walks out of the room. Maybe Dr. Marks isn't such an awkward guy after all.
**
I spend the afternoon reading.
Buffy comes back for dinner, but my attempts to learn what she's been doing are fruitless. Guess she talked to Dr. Marks and the other therapists all day, and I fully understand that she doesn't want to go on in the same way right now. My assumptions are confirmed when she smiles gratefully at me as I give up after the third attempt. She's looking rather tired, and so am I, I guess, because that's how I feel. Tired, that is.
I change into my pyjamas, not without a short-lived feeling of shame at exposing myself in front of her, but she turns away, sensing my uneasiness. To my surprise she follows my example and begins preparing for the night as well.
Blushing at the thought of seeing her, I lay down on my bed and close my eyes. The last thing I see is Buffy, just in her bra and panties, turning her back on me and rummaging about in her closet for a singlet or something to wear for the night. 'Why? Why did you have to close your eyes?' I wonder. Just as I have convinced myself to have a peek at her again, I hear her bed squeak as she lays down as well.
"G'night, Willow," she says.
"Night, Buffy," I murmur and smile. With happy thoughts of how good it feels to be wished a good night by Buffy, I have to pay tribute to last night's events, and I'm sound asleep soon.
**
I'm roused from sleep by someone shaking my shoulders. In the pale moonlight that's shining in through the window, I can see that it's Buffy, sitting fully clothed on the edge of my bed.
"Buffy?" I whisper drowsily and slowly sit up. "What's going on?"
"Shhh..." she makes and puts her finger to her lips. "Wanna sneak out of here and have a walk in the moonlight?" she asks in a muffled voice.
I see her wide-open eyes glistening in the moonlight and if I wouldn't know better, I'd say that she's moonstruck, but I guess it's just her hunter mode (or whatever it's called) taking control, driving her out into the darkest night to make sure the ones she cares for are able to sleep safely.
I'm not sure why she wants me to accompany her, or whether this is a good idea at all to sneak around in the night. But then again... Every moment spent with Buffy is a moment to cherish.
'Your gonna break a dozen or so house rules,' another part of me makes itself heard.
'So what?' I think to myself.
"Okay," I say. I fumble for my clothes in the relative darkness. Buffy sneaks to the door and presses her ear to it, listening to the sounds outside. I join her near the door after dressing quickly, and holding my breath, I listen as well, but can't make out anything.
"Gotta wait for the right moment, Willow..." she whispers into my ear. I just nod, my brain occupied with processing how nicely her breath felt at my ear.
We're standing there like ten minutes, and I begin to think that I might fall asleep standing when Buffy suddenly grabs my hand. With the other, she noiselessly opens our door, and we sneak out. With a quick glance into both parts of the hallway, she makes sure that the coast is clear. She closes the door behind us with the same care.
"She's in Pamela's room," she whispers, referring to the night nurse. Still holding my hand, she begins to walk quickly towards the other end of the ward, past the now empty nurses station. She stops in front of the room that I had designated as a storeroom yesterday. Buffy opens the door, and then we're in. Just as she closes the door behind us, I can hear another one down the hallway open.
"We made it..."
"Sure," Buffy answers as if it were nothing.
'Although that was quite close,' I think to myself, 'And I have no idea whether we'll be as lucky again.'
I look around. The walls are covered with shelves filled with bed linen and boxes containing all kinds of other things. "Oh no!" I whisper as I see past where Buffy's standing. She's opened the window already, and now closely examines the iron grille that's blocking our way. "No problem," is her only comment.
She grabs two of the bars, takes a deep breath, and pushes hard. Suddenly, the grille gets loose and with a loud thump, it drops to the ground outside.
I gasp at the sight, although I know that she must be really strong from my dreams.
We both bold our breath, but all remains silent.
"After you," Buffy says and gives me her hand. With her help, I crouch through the window and jump to the ground.
"We really made it, Buffy!" I whisper excitedly when she jumps down next to me.
"Yes, we did," she says. She easily picks up the grille from the ground and reinserts it into the wall. Luckily for us, it stays in place although large pieces of cement have fallen out of the wall where the grille was attached.
She motions me to follow her, and with a stoop we sneak to the edge of the building. Just as we're about to round the corner, I almost bump into Buffy when she suddenly freezes mid-motion and kneels down. She slowly raises her fist up to her shoulder so I can see it, then waves sideways to the corner twice with her outstretched index finger. Although war films never were my thing, I immediately get what's going on. Slowly moving forward, I peek around the corner right above her. I can see the silhouette of someone standing about twenty yards away against the starry sky, and make out the unmistakable glow of a cigarette.
"Guess grumpy nurse has the night watch and is having a smoke," I whisper into Buffy's ear, and wonder how calm I am, although I'm sneaking around in the night and all. At home in Sunnydale, I wouldn't ever do that, and if I had to for some reason, I would've been scared stiff, but with her at my side, I feel perfectly safe and not excited at all. "Yeah," she whispers back.
We hold out at the corner for at least ten minutes. I pick up the sounds of someone walking on gravel, and to my relief the footsteps are moving away from where we are. Finally, silence falls (except for the owl I've been hearing in the past nights already), and Buffy gets up from the ground where she's been kneeling, takes my hand and runs off with me in tow without saying a word.
We cross the gap between the building and the edge of the small forest as fast as possible. Once we're in the woods' cover, we slow down. Buffy unerringly leads us through the forest, although I can't help but think that she's altering the direction we're walking in almost imperceptibly. As we emerge from under the trees, I realize that my impression was correct, as we've reached the one place I could've bet we'd check out: the old cemetery we've spotted from the window. Looking at it from a close distance, I can see that the fence surrounding it is broken at many places, and we enter it at a particular spot where the fence is gone completely.
It's strange to watch Buffy as we slowly saunter over the cemetery. She seems so changed now: she's extremely watchful, sneaking around, then stopping out of a sudden, listening to the sounds of the night, only to resume the sneaking again.
"I think it's an old graveyard," I whisper. "I bet no one's been buried here for years," I add, judging from the way the graves look like, and point to one of the graves. Like most of the others we've seen so far, it's almost completely overgrown. I feel Buffy relax a little as she seems to come to the same conclusion (yes, we're still holding hands and I'm not gonna complain about that).
After crossing the cemetery, we're finally out of sight as far as the clinic is concerned, so we can walk normally over the meadow bordering the cemetery from now on, and I begin to really enjoy our nightly excursion. There's a light and warm breeze, the crickets are chirping, the waxing moon is shining down on us, and most important, Buffy's still holding my hand. I listen to the crickets' song, and into my self for anything casting dark clouds over this beautiful night, but there's nothing. I'm just happy.
Soon we've reached the end of the meadow and an unexpected obstacle--a medium-height stone wall covered with ivy surrounding the estate.
With Buffy's assistance I climb over it. With a giant leap, she's suddenly standing next to me. She just jumped over the wall!
"Wow," I make.
"I, uh, do a lot of jumping, erm, sports..." she explains rather lamely.
As it turns out, we've landed in some really tight chaparral, and much to my regret, we've got to crouch on all fours to get through. But when we're on the other side of the thicket finally, we both gasp in surprise. Below, enlightened by the moon, are the dark, metallic gleaming rails of a railroad track. I remember hearing a kind of thundering or rustling sometimes during the nights. It slowly increased, went on for a while and diminished again. 'Of course! That's been a train, right here on this track,' I think to myself.
We half slide, half fall down the grassy slope. Once we've reached the bottom, Buffy just kneels down and lays her head on the rail, which is making me really nervous.
"There's a train coming, but it's still considerably far away," she says after listening at the rail for a moment.
Startled, I look up and down the track and my heart misses a beat. It's not a train, but someone sliding down the slope just like we did, approximately thirty yards away. I can't believe my eyes. It's Moony--her face is clearly visible in the moonlight. It must be her, although I can't imagine how she got here... She slowly turns around and begins to walk away from us.
"Oh my God, Buffy!" I yelp.
Buffy quickly rises from the ground and looks into the direction that I'm pointing to. Switching into full hunter mode, she takes in the whole situation immediately.
"Hey!" she shouts at the walking girl, but Moony doesn't react. "She's sleepwalking," I stammer. That's the only explanation I can think of.
I turn around to see the approaching train's inconstant headlight appear in the distance.
"Moony...um...Monica!" I yell, but there isn't any reaction from her.
"Get away from the track," Buffy instructs me and takes off into Moony's direction, running really fast. I follow her instructions immediately and climb the slope on all fours a bit. After I'm up the slope sufficiently, I turn my head to look what Buffy's doing. She's almost reached Moony.
Just as the train engine passes by my position, I see her push Moony off the track, then jump after her right in time. After that I can't see them anymore and for what seems to be an eternity, my world consists of the train's noise and vibrations, and the nagging fear that my eyes were playing tricks on me, that they didn't make it, that only Moony but not Buffy made it...
Finally the train is gone, its rumbling slowly dying away in the distance.
I quickly slide down the slope again and run on the ties to where I last saw Buffy and Monica. My heart leaps when I see them, dirty and in Moony's case with some bruises, but apart from that unhurt. Moony's still lying on the slope, an expression of absolute confusion on her face. Buffy slowly gets up. "Buffy!" I exclaim and hug her tightly. "Hey," she just says, playing cool. But I can hear the joy in her voice at seeing me unharmed.
Moony still can't understand what she's doing here. "What...what happened? Where am I?" she suddenly asks. "You're safe now, Moo...Monica," I explain. "We're at the railroad track near the clinic, you were sleepwalking or...something...and then a train came...and Buffy saved you."
She just stares at me, then at Buffy. I bet I could've told her that we just saw Elvis on a flying motorcycle, and she wouldn't have objected. "She's in shock," Buffy explains.
"I...sleepwalked?" she slowly says to herself.
"Come on, we have to get you away from here," Buffy says and grabs her left arm. I grab the other, and jointly, we climb up the slope and crouch through the chaparral, Buffy ahead, then Moony and finally me.
"I never sleepwalked," Moony suddenly says with determination, and for the first time, I have the impression that she's fully with us again.
Finally we arrive at the wall. Buffy is the first to climb over it. Moony doesn't have difficulties following her, so I guess that kind of answers how she got here. She must've followed us the whole time, or has she?
Now it's my turn. At the moment I heave myself up to the top of the wall, I hear a sound to the left. I freeze and turn my head. I see something white, or light-colored, in the distance, somewhere in the bushes near the wall. I try to take a closer look, but it's gone already. I swing my legs over the wall and jump down on the other side.
"What took you?" Buffy asks.
"I dunno. Something was there, animal or...whatever," I say, pointing to the left, and shrug. Buffy intensely listens into the designated direction, an expression of heightened vigilance on her face, but then she shrugs as well.
We quickly walk over the meadow, the romantic mood that I felt before gone, replaced by an unfounded unease. We pass by the old cemetery, and Buffy directly takes us to the window we climbed through.
The grille is still in place. "Did you climb out through this window?" Buffy wants to know. Moony gives both of us a disbelieving look, sure thinking something like 'How could someone climb through a bared window?' She shakes her head. "I don't remember," she says.
But how did she get out of the ward, if not through this window? I don't have time to contemplate this anymore because suddenly the vicinity of the building is bathed in light. Dazzled, I close my eyes. "Move!" Buffy shouts, and I feel her drag at my arm. But I just remain where I am, paralyzed. 'We're caught, we're caught, we're caught'--this is the only thing I can think of right now. I try to open my eyes again, and finally my efforts are crowned with success.
Through my screwed up eyes, I see someone running up to us, and a cold and strident voice says, "Now you're in trouble."
To be continued...