This Kind of Lonely

Disclaimer

I own NOTHING (except for the plot*smile*)! Anything in this story that falls under existing copyrights belongs to their respective owners.

A/N
Next chapter and Spike and Buffy meet for the first time with her being awake. I know that the way the doctor talked to Buffy might not be right in a hospital kind of way but I needed it for the story. Otherwise there wouldn’t be one! ;) Thanks to everybody who was so nice to leave me a review and everyone enjoy the new chapter.
Hugs to all!

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Previously on “This Kind of Lonely”:

On her way back from the hair salon Buffy was hit by Spike in his car who was fetching his fiancée from the beauty farm. Buffy passed out while Spike takes care of her waiting for the ambulance to arrive.


This Kind of Lonely


Chapter 2: Wakeup

The paramedics arrived minutes later. Spike was still kneeling next to Buffy’s passed out form, trying to comfort her as much as possible in the given situation.

“Sir, please, sir… give us some space. We can’t work if you won’t back up from the casualty” one of the paramedics manoeuvred Spike away from Buffy.

“What’s up with her…tell me will she be okay…why isn’t she awake?” Spike, still in shock, asked the medic.

“Sir please, calm down, everything will be okay, she’s in good care with us” answered the medic before he turned away from Spike to help his colleague with Buffy.

The paramedics tried to secure Buffy and to avoid further injuries while talking about the injuries she got from the impact of the car. Spike didn’t understand a word they were saying.

“Hey wait … I’m coming with you” Spike called to the medics when they started to put the stretcher Buffy was lying on into the back of the ambulance.

“Are you a relative of her?” the medic queried.

“No… I am not…” Spike answered the question.

“Then you can’t go with us. Only relatives are allowed to accompany a casualty in the ambulance” the medic tried to explain the situation.

“I’m her boyfriend” Spike lied without recognizing it.

“No you are not” Harmony who had closed the distance between Spike and her without his knowing said “you are my fiancée.”

“What?” the medic queried slightly confused.

“I don’t know that girl” Spike still lied while pointing at Harmony. He didn’t know why, he only knew that he had to stay with the girl he had hit with his car.

“Okay Sir, then please get in, we have to take her to the hospital. We need to get her into surgery immediately” the medic motioned for Spike to enter the back of the ambulance.

“If you enter that ambulance I’ll be gone forever Spike” Harmony yelled to Spike’s retreating form.

“If only…” Spike muttered under his breath while he entered the ambulance. He took a seat next to the stretcher and pulled out his cell phone. He typed a short message into the small piece of electronics to inform Xander about what happened and where to pick up Harmony. He turned it off after receiving a glare from the medic that still examined the unconscious woman on the stretcher.

He instinctively took her hand into his and started to rub it in small circular motions. It should have been comforting for Buffy if she would have recognized it but it also kind of calmed down Spike himself. He turned his head to look into her face and to see if she would wake up again. As his eyes roamed over her face he noticed again not for the first time how beautiful this girl in front of him was. Although her face was full of dirt from the street she had hit and a small stream of blood seemed to flow from under her hairline over her left half of her forehead she still seemed to be most beautiful to him. He couldn’t tear his eyes from her. For a moment he wondered why he was driving in the back of an ambulance and not taking his so-called fiancée home but when his inner eye fell on the face of the woman he was engaged to he had to push the unpleasant image away. So he continued to look into the beautiful face lying there on that stretcher in front of him.

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The ambulance arrived at the hospital about a quarter an hour later. Spike ran next to Buffy still lying on the stretcher while she was rolled into the surgery room by the nurses. He was stopped in front of the room by another nurse who told him he couldn’t follow. She told him that he needed to go to the front desk and give the nurse there information about Buffy. Afterwards he should wait in the waiting room. He would be called as soon as something happened.

Spike walked towards the front desk his mind still a little bit fogged. A few steps before he reached the desk he remembered that he couldn’t tell the nurse anything about the girl. Why was he here? He didn’t even know her.

So he entered the waiting room without stopping at the front desk. He sat down into one of the plastic chairs and scanned through the magazines. As nothing seemed to interest him he decided to just sit and think about what happened.

The clock on the wall made huge steps forward and he still couldn’t get a grip on why he was in the hospital waiting for the finish of the surgery of a girl he didn’t know. He had started to pace the room a short time after he sat down and he surely would have walked a hole into the ground if it weren’t made of marble tiles.

Suddenly a nurse entered the waiting room.

“Sir? Sir?” she called to Spike.
“Yeah?” he turned around and looked at the small woman in her white nurse suit.

“A wanted to tell you that Miss Summers is out of surgery now. We had to stop an internal bleeding, but she will be fine” she told Spike with a small smile.

“Thank you, miss, can… can I see her?” Spike asked.

“I am sorry, Sir, we had to give her something against the pain and something to ease her sleep. She won’t wake up until sometime tomorrow, that’s for sure. I think it would be best for you to go home and rest. You can come back tomorrow and see her” the nurse denied Spike’s question.

Spike nodded in understanding and left the hospital to get home. He somehow had to get home and talk to Harmony. He was sure that she would be her bitchiest self but he had to make her understand his actions. He called for a cab and got on his way home.

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Spike entered his house and found the whole place unlit. He went into the living room in search of his fiancée. The only thing he found was a small note on the coffee table that told him that Harmony had left to spend a few days with her mother. It further read that if he would really love her he would call her and ask for her forgiveness and to come back to him.

“Stupid bint” Spike yelled into the empty room. He left the living room and went into his study. He opened the small bar under one of the book shelves and fetched a bottle of scotch. He opened it and took a huge gulp. He didn’t bother for a glass. As he felt the warming liquid burn down his throat he sat down in his chair and again started to think about the whys and whats of his behaviour. Why did he follow a girl he didn’t know? Why did he throw away his life with his fiancée? His fiancée for god’s sake? Wasn’t he by the laws of god bound to her? He continued drinking. He wanted to drown those uneasy questions inside his head. He wanted to turn off the voices telling him about his beahviour.

After drinking a good amount of scotch he felt tired and went into the master bedroom to lie down. He dozed off seconds after his head hit the pillow but it wasn’t a restful sleep. His dreams were haunted by a beautiful blonde girl that wasn’t his fiancée.

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Spike awoke with the mother of all headaches greeting him. He groaned when he got up and muttered something unintelligible along the lines of never drinking again while he went down into the kitchen to get himself some coffee. The coffee machine had a timer that would start the coffee at a certain time. Spike thanked the gods, the powers that be or whoever was responsible for automatic coffee makers and poured himself a cup.

After drinking the second cup he felt the life slowly returning to his intoxicated body. He slowly wandered into his study and contemplated his options for the day. He found the note Harmony had left for him still lying on his desk and took it into his hand. He studied it for a while before he rumpled it into a ball and threw it into the waste basket.

He turned around in his seat and pushed one of the speed dial buttons on the phone sitting on the desk.

“Mr. Wellings office, what can I do for you?” a female voice answered the phone.

“Wellings here, cancel all my appointments for today. I won’t be in the office until Monday” Spike answered in a strict business voice.

“But Sir, you have an important appointment with…” the secretary responded.

“I said cancel all my appointments” Spike’s voice grew louder with every word he said.

“Okay Mr. Wellings. Have a nice weekend” the voice of the secretary was shaking a little bit.

Spike disconnected the call without a goodbye or anything else. He got up from the chair and left his study to take a quick shower.

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Spike entered the hospital one hour later. He went to the front desk and waited for the nurse searching through the papers to recognize him.

“Hello Sir, what can I do for you?” the young woman asked.

“I need the room number of Miss Summers” Spike smiled at the nurse.

“Yes, the girl from the car accident yesterday” she again searched through a pile of papers “room 267, I’m sorry but the computer system went down this morning and we have to return to the paper way…” she turned her head to look at the cute man standing in front of her desk, only to find him gone.

Spike walked through the well signposted corridors of the hospital until he found room 267. He looked through the glass window in the wall and saw her beautiful form still sleeping in the white linen of the hospital bed.

He entered the room and walked over to the bed. Suddenly a thought entered his mind and he stopped at the foot end of the bed. He pulled the case sheet from its place and scanned through it. He knew it wasn’t nice to enter someone’s privacy uninvited but he didn’t know her first name. So he scanned through the papers until he found it. He placed the papers in their former place again and took a seat in the chair next to her bed.

Just like the day before in the ambulance he took her hand into his and stroke it in soothing patterns.

“So you’re Buffy, pet, name ‘s William but I prefer Spike” he told the still unconscious blonde lying in the bed.

“Why don’t you wake up, sweetheart, so you can tell me why I am here and not at home begging my fiancée for forgiveness” he kept on talking.

Time went by and Spike never stopped talking to her. Although he knew she wasn’t listening he told her about nothing and everything. He thought that perhaps him talking would wake her up. He hadn’t talked to any of the hospital staff but he somehow thought that she should be up by now.

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Buffy awoke to the sound of somebody talking to her. She couldn’t understand the words but she knew that somebody was talking. She tried to move a muscle in her body but was stopped by the immense pain that shot through every fibre of her body.

When her eyes finally started to flutter open the first thing she recognized was purely white. It kind of reminded her of the moment before everything went black. The sweet contrast of the two colours. Only this time it was the other way round. She came from black and went to white.

“There you are sweetheart” she heard the voice saying “welcome to the waking world again.”

“Wa…wa…water…” Buffy’s voice was barely audible.

“Ssh…be quiet, don’t stress yourself, I’ll get you some” Spike stood up to get a glass of water. He returned seconds later and placed the glass on Buffy’s lips. His other hand lifted her head slightly from the pillow so she could drink.

After she had finished the glass of water she felt some life had returned into her body and she was finally able to open her eyes. She found razor sharp cheek bones and the bluest eyes she had ever seen staring right back at her.

“Better?” the man in front of her she didn’t know asked. She gave a small nod and he kindly smiled at her.

“Who… who are you?” Buffy asked, her voice still a bit scratchy.

“I drove the car you had an accident with yesterday” Spike answered the smile slowly disappearing from his face.

“Why are you here? You think I won’t sue you if you are the first one I see? This mother thing only works with ducks and even with them only if they a newly born” her voice grew harder.

“No, no pet, please don’t get me wrong. I was so scared that something worse may have happened to you than it first seemed. And even more so I wanted to tell you how sorry I am…”

“Aren’t you William Wellings?” Buffy interrupted him.

“Yes…” Spike answered “although I prefer the name Sp…”

“Sure, and you would think I am that stupid to believe that someone like you would be here only to make sure I’m feeling well” Buffy’s voice got an agitated edge “ if you think I won’t call the press and even more so won’t sue you, you’re definitely not as smart as everybody else tells” she finished.

“Please, understand, I really am sorry. It doesn’t matter to me if I get sued or if the press writes some piece of garbage about me. I was really scared and only wanted to make sure you are well” Spike’s voice kind of sounded pleading.

That moment a nurse entered Buffy’s hospital room and recognized Buffy’s agitated state.

“Miss Summers you shouldn’t let upset you…” the nurse told Buffy.

“Would please tell Mr. Wellings to leave?” was Buffy’s response to the nurse.

“You sure you want your boyfriend to go?” the nurse queried.

“My WHAT?” Buffy’s voice now definitely was loud.

“Your boyfriend. If you want me to make sure he finds the way outside that is no problem…”

“You told them you were my boyfriend?” Buffy turned to look at Spike, fire burning in her eyes. He just nodded and went to the chair where a black leather duster was hanging.

“Good morning Miss Summers” the voice of the doctor who had entered the door filtered through the room.

“Good morning” Buffy answered in a not so cheery voice. Spike was still putting on his duster all the while looking at Buffy who didn’t acknowledge him with one look.

“How are you feeling today?” the doctor asked.

“Not as good as usual but it could be worse I think” she replied.

“Well, you see you had a small internal bleeding we had to stop yesterday. And also you might notice that you have a trauma to your spine which effects the motor skills regarding your legs” the doctor explained.

Buffy for the first time noticed that she couldn’t move her legs, she didn’t even fell them. She stared at the doctor in shock.

“Does this mean I… I am paraplegic?” she stuttered.

“Only temporarily until the swelling in your spine returns to normal although we can’t tell how long it will take at the moment” the doctor answered her question.

Buffy kind of relaxed and lost herself in her thoughts.

“We also need to inform somebody to fetch you, a relative, a close friend…” the doctor continued.

Spike had reached the door and stopped in the frame.

“Why?” Buffy asked.

“Because you can’t stay longer than the day after tomorrow. After that your insurance won’t pay the stay and even if you would pay for it yourself we are quite frequented at the moment. We can only tend to emergencies right now. So if you could tell me who I could call to take care of you…” the doctor finished.

“There’s nobody…” Buffy answered flatly.

“A sister, a close friend, parents…” the doctor continued asking.

“No…” Buffy’s voice grew small “my parents are both dead, I am new to the city, so no friends and my sister is in Europe on a back packers tour without a possibility of contacting her as long as she doesn’t contact me” Buffy bent her head down. She had to physically keep herself from crying. She felt lonely. She felt hatred towards the man that had put her into this position. She felt lonelier than she ever had. She felt this kind of lonely where you can’t even see a small light at the end of the tunnel.

“But…” the doctor suddenly was at a loss of words “but...” he tried again “you can’t stay on your own. You will need a wheelchair for the next weeks and somebody to help you.”

“I’ll take care of her” a British voice filtered through the room and everybody turned their heads to stare wide-eyed at the man with the bleach-blonde hair standing in the door frame.

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To be continued…

Upcoming: Chapter 3: A familiar Feeling