Doppelganger

Chapter Three

Spike’s head hurt. That was the one thing he knew, everything else was just a blur. He seemed to remember falling. People had been talking around him, and then that was it. Falling…dying...that was it! He had died. He didn’t remember death hurting the head before, but he supposed that all deaths were different. Slowly he opened his eyes, and saw a bright light. He couldn’t believe that he had ended up in heaven, but hell was sure getting a lot brighter.

“Bloody, hell that’s sunlight!” Spike yelled as he jumped off the bed to get away from the rays. Tucking himself into the corner Spike felt his face for burns. There weren’t any. Then he realized that his ass was cold. Finally it dawned on Spike, he wasn’t dead at all; he was in the bleeding hospital. Not only that, he was the patient.

The eerie sound of the flat-lined heart monitor brought Emily running into the room. She looked around and found the unknown coma patient huddled in the corner. He was Awake! Not only that, he was out of bed!

“Hey! You’re awake!” Emily said as she walked over to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. “You must have had quite a shock waking up here. Will you be alright for a moment while I go get the doctor?” Spike nodded his head still confused, wondering why they had yet to figure out that he was dead. He really should run away now, but he just didn’t have the energy to move. Getting to the corner had taken all of his strength.

A doctor came rushing in followed closely by the little brown haired nurse whose name tag said she was Emily. Spike looked at the doctor wondering how long it would be before he called in his colleges to help figure out why this patient could live without a beating heart.

“Hey, how are you feeling?” the doctor asked in a kindly way.

“My head hurts, and I could really do with a shot of whiskey.” Spike said looking at the doctor with a pained expression. He was in the hospital it didn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that he was not in peak physical condition.

“Well, I tell you what.” The doctor said “Why don’t you let us help you back into bed, and we’ll do something about the pain in your head. Can’t promise the whiskey though.” He added with a chuckle. “You’ve pulled out all your IV’s so we are going to have to put those back in, but it shouldn’t take too long to get you comfortable again.”

“No, I can’t go back to the bed,” Spike said his mind murky “It’s in the sun.”

“Well alright, Emily can pull the curtains for you.” The doctor said wondering about the strange comment. Maybe it was hurting his eyes he eventually decided. Emily pulled the curtains and came back to stand on the other side of Spike, together they lifted him off the floor and placed him back in the bed. Spike hated every moment of it.

“So, mystery man,” Emily giggled “You have a name?” She reinserted the IV into Spikes arm as she spoke.

“Spike,” He muttered, refusing to look at the woman who had just lifted him off the floor.

“Strange name,” she replied. “Must be a nickname. You got a full one?”

“Ya, it’s William…Pratt I think. It’s been a while since I’ve used that one.”

“Really? Could have fooled me Mystery Man” Emily gathered the garbage she had created and slipped the heart monitor back onto Spikes finger. The monitor returned to the strong regular beats it had been blurting out before being rudely interrupted.

Spike stared at the monitor with a sense on wonder. “My heart is beating?” He asked.

Emily looked at him like he had lost his head. “Yes,” she said slowly. “Generally it is better that way. Makes you more alive. I think you should try and get some sleep honey. I’ll be right down the hall. Just push that button if you need anything.” With that Emily left the room, leaving an incredulous Spike in her wake.

“Maybe, I’m dreaming” Spike thought absently. This led to him wondering if you could dream when you were dead. Spike stopped thinking right there. He was tired and his head hurt. He didn’t understand what was going on, but he was sure he was going to wake up soon anyway so it didn’t matter. Spike closed his eyes and fell into a fitful sleep.

* * *

“What did you do?” Buffy glared at the two squirming people in front of her. For their part Willow and Giles managed to look even guiltier then they already did.

“N…Nothing” Willow stammered out, looking up at Buffy through downcast eyes.

“Which totally explains why you are here and not in California at the moment? Seriously, Giles what did you do?” Buffy favored her watcher with a glare that only she could give, and Giles relented.

“Now Buffy, you have to understand that what we did was for your own good.” Giles took his glasses off and cleaned then, showing his agitation.

“You know, every time you start something that way, I end up in a hospital bed. Now tell me, what you did!”

“It was just a little spell, Buffy. I swear!” Willow looked so upset that Buffy almost forgave her; then she tried to move and felt her broken ribs. She decided she was going to make Willow suffer a bit longer.

“It was supposed to bring Spike back to say goodbye to you, so you could go back to your work and let go of this Spike thing.” Giles put in.

“But it didn’t work…or rather it worked but not right.” Willow said.

“So let me get this straight,” Buffy said looking between her best friend and her watcher. “You brought Spike back from the dead so that he could say goodbye to me and be gone again. And you did this why? Because bringing people back from the dead has worked oh so well in the past?”

“I did it because you needed to let it go Buffy!” Giles said finally losing his cool. “You were fixated on the matter and you wouldn’t go see a counselor. I needed to do something!”

“You could have looked for him. What made you think that saying goodbye to yet another person close to me would help?” Buffy said quietly her eyes shinning with tears.

“Look Buffy, I’m sorry” Giles gave in. He couldn’t stand seeing Buffy cry, she was more like his daughter then anything else. “I just wanted to make it better.”

“I hate to cut into this lovely conversation.” Xander said as he walked into the hospital room holding a bouquet of flowers “But aren’t we all forgetting something here, like I don’t know, evil Spike. That is, if that is different from any other kind of Spike.”

“Xander!” Buffy cried reaching up for a gentle hug from her long time friend. “When did you get here….and what did you have to do with this.” Buffy said the last part with a glare that could have frozen boiling water.

Xander held up his hands in self defense. “Giles called me last night while you were still out of it, and I flew in this morning. For once I am completely innocent. I promise no singing and dancing either.”

“The singing and dancing would be kind of fun right now.” Willow muttered from the corner where she had retreated to hide.

“Don’t tempt him.” Buffy said from the bed, “You never know what Xander will take as serious and I don’t want Dawn to end up in a hell dimension. Oh my God Dawn! I completely forgot about her!”

“No worries, she came to check on you last night and is staying with Fiona, the seerer in the coven until you are better.” Giles assured her. “Why don’t you try and get some sleep for now, while Willow and I see if we can figure out what went wrong with the spell. Willow says her locator spells aren’t working and Fiona says that she has double vision when she tries to see Spike. This is all so very strange.”

His last words were lost on Buffy, however, because after being assured that Dawn was safe she had drifted of to sleep and heal. Her friends crept quietly out of the hospital room each consumed with their own thoughts.

* * *

Spike woke up with a start, he had been dreaming about her again. She was in trouble and she needed him. He needed to get out of this damn hospital! He was feeling better already and he knew he would heal on his own if they would just let him go.

The Doctors weren’t so sure, however. They couldn’t believe the rate at which he was healing, but they still were not ready to believe that Spike could go home. In their opinion someone who had just spent close to six weeks in a coma needed to stay in the hospital a little longer then three days.

Spike wanted out though, he had already spent too much time lying aroundand he felt out of shape and sore. He had finally come to terms with the fact that he was alive again and had even remembered his strange conversation with the guardians, but as to exactly what he was now he was still unsure. He was healing faster then a human should have and from what he could tell he had retained his vampire strength. He could no longer vamp out though. He was at a strange crossroads, not quite human, not quite demon. He was itching to explore this new gift he had been given. First however, needed to get out of this hospital.

“And find her.” He thought to himself.

Emily walked into the room preparing to give Spike his medications. “You are looking better everyday honey” She said cheerfully. “I bet you would be even better if you could get a good nights sleep though.”

“What do you mean?” Spike asked, wondering what on earth she could be talking about. He had slept through two nights in a row.

“You keep yelling a girl’s name in your sleep” Emily said conversationally. “It’s a good thing you’re on a coma ward or we might worry about you waking up the other patients.”

“Buffy” Spike said under his breath, knowing exactly what name he was yelling out.

“Ya, that’s it,” Emily answered. “It’s such a strange name. You don’t hear it very often. Is it short of Elizabeth?”

“No, that’s just her name.” Spike answered. Wishing she was here right now.

“Really? Because there was a girl who checked in downstairs a few days ago, and her name was Buffy too. Last name was a season or something. Poor thing she was beat up pretty bad. She lost a lot of blood too. I usually don’t work that ward but I was covering a shift for my friend. Her friends were pretty worried about her.”

“Did you say she is here?” Spike asked, thinking it was too good to be true.

“Well I assume she’s still here.” Emily answered oblivious to the interest of her conversation partner.

Spike jumped up and ran towards that door only to find himself attached to the bed by the IV’s. Ripping them out of his arm he headed for the door.

“Where are you going?” Emily called after him. “You can’t take your IV’s out!” But Spike was already down the hall and had no intention of coming back. With nothing else to do, Emily ran after him.

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A/N So, you guys got an update early. What can I say, I was bored. Enjoy and please review it makes me all happy on the inside!!