Normal Again: Wednesday
by Alicia
I spend the night in an actual straightjacket, unable to tell the doctors what had happened. I'd stretch their selective memory defenses if I tried. There are reasons no one knows about vampires.

Around three in the morning, I finally doze off.

I'm standing on the edge of a harbor. It's raining; I'm soaked to the skin, but I don't feel the rain next to...I can't identify what I feel. Whatever it is, the air is as saturated with it as it is with water. It's pain...but it's not the kind of scary, burdensome pain...it's love, but it's a raw love identical to desperation. I won't be able to breathe when the man holding me now takes back his arms and separates himself. I can't see his face.

I know he wants me to keep going.

He's told me that. "We never win. Not completely. But it's important to keep fighting, and I learned that from you."

I love him so much it hurts...I love him so much it's possible to be the Slayer. I'm at that harbor again. He's going to take back his arms...

My eyes snap open. 6:04 this time.

In the half-dozen or so times I've had that dream--I mean, that specific dream; I've had prophecy dreams and nightmares almost every night--since I found out about I was called as the Slayer, I haven't been able to hate that particular series of images.

I've never felt love like that. I've had steady boyfriends...since forever...sometimes seems like yesterday, sometimes seems like another lifetime ago...you know, pre-two-worlds. I was popularity queen at Hemery, at least until I was Called. I like dating. I like dancing, and I like—uh, making out, I suppose would be the term. But I've never, ever experienced that kind of love. I can't even remember it very well when I'm awake.

Today I realize that...the pain in the dream is more than I can handle; yet it comes from a connection that means life. It comes from a place that is fully alive. From a connection.

The Slayer is always alone...but does that make being the Slayer the opposite of being alive?

I must have cried out in my sleep, because one of the nurses—Daryl, that's his name—hollers, "Buffy, are you okay in there?"

That's professional.

"I'm dying, and my only cure comes in a Milky Way wrapper," I holler back.

I lie in bed a few more moments trying to crystallize that memory, that feeling of being alive, but I give up and get up. They must have removed the straightjacket in the night. I shudder at the memory, and resolve that no matter the cost, I won't give them another opportunity to do that to me.

There's a little form next to my breakfast tray with options for tomorrow's meals. Some of the options don't seem bad, but it's more the principle of it—it's humiliating to be fed like a child or an invalid. I do, however, circle both the "apple" and the "orange" juice options for tomorrow's breakfast. I can use my apple juice to lose the pills and still have something to drink. Then I circle peanut butter and jelly sandwich, breakfast, lunch, and supper. Let's see if the staff really follows through on that.

Dr. Taylor assembles everyone in the group room after we're all done eating. There's about a dozen of us, including two people who arrived during the night. It's the first chance I've had to pay attention to the others. Today I'm aware enough to look around, and there's no one pulling me away. I'd wondered if they were all crazy, like everyone thought I was...but they're not crazy. There are a several elderly people...one even whispered to me that he knew this place was a lot comfier than the old folks' home where he usually lived. Of the rest—well, they're all coherent. They all make sense. No boys younger than thirty. I'm not sure whether to be disappointed or relieved. There's no one my age. Beyond age and coherence, I don't think I want to know. All of them seem to think they'll be getting back to their lives soon. I hope I'm reading that right. I begin to relax a little.

However, the first "group session" weirds me out so much that I run out after ten minutes and hide in my room through the second. No one notices.

It finally has time to hit me that everyone in here thinks I'm on some sort of ego trip. I don't know how many different ways I tried to say I didn't choose to be the Slayer...and saying that doesn't help.

What if they're right?

Am I really the Chosen One?

Get a grip, Buffy, I tell myself. That vampire last night was real enough, and I took care of it.

I have time to sneak down to the group room and check. No vampire. Big pile of dust. I draw a smiley face in it with my finger before heading back to my room.

Dawn's idea of keeping a diary in code suddenly sounds awfully good. I can write "asbestos" instead of "vampires"—it's a building code violation Dad got called on when I was five and he thinks I don't remember. I search for a word to use instead of "Slayer" or "Calling" or "Birthright," and the only one that comes in my head is "turkey." A Sunday School song from the time I was in elementary school rings in my head: "If God can love turkeys, then God can love you. For you are a turkey, but I am one too." I write the lyrics on the first page. It makes me laugh out loud. There's an edge of hysteria in my voice that won't help with my Buffy-isn't-crazy image, but I don't think anyone's listening.

Dad comes about fifteen minutes after visiting hours start at two. He stands in the entrance to the hallway holding a box of chocolates. I don't see him until I inch out of my room. He's standing there just like he's a vampire and needs to be invited. With what Dawn said yesterday, I don't expect to see Mom, but I'm surprised Dawn isn't there. I know she misses me, and I know she jumps at the chance to get out of school. Even though she says she adores school. Dawn's weird that way.

What I wouldn't give to be in school...but I wouldn't be there even if I wasn't here; I got kicked out. (Then again, even if none of that had happened, I probably wouldn't be in school. It's Junior February Dance Shopping Skip week...like every week in January, and February.)

I can't get around the fact that I'm not out dress shopping because of the Slayer thing, though. I wonder if the world needs me that way anymore. I hope not. There are so many other things I want to do, and none of them involve any more time here in the hospital! The fear that they'll never let me out is waning a little...but it's really up to Dr. Taylor whether he sends me home or into one of the longer term units.

Dad draws me back to the present and answers an unspoken question at the same time. "Dawn isn't speaking to either your mother or me. Dawn says you're telling the truth with this vampire thing and we're keeping you away. If it keeps up much longer, your mother is going to try to get her some help."

I smirk. "Dawn's a hair puller," I say.

What Dad doesn't say is just as important as what he says...he's scared, I can tell, scared that I'm not just weird Buffy, that there's something wrong with all the kids in our family. I make a mental note to tell Dawn to lay low and never mention if she notices a vampire. Now I regret all those stories I told her, those big-sister ghost stories with the flashlight under the covers. I wonder if I have phone privileges here. Maybe so. The guy who came in an hour ago has already made more trouble than me; I’m staying as far away from him as I can.

Standing there in the hall with Dad is beyond awkward, so I invite him in my room and open the chocolates. They're the first substantial food I've had in three days, and they're wonderful. I search for anything safe to say to Dad. He searches for anything that won't tell me to snap out of it. He leaves just before three.

I spend the rest of my afternoon fine-tuning my coded diary skills. It might come in handy later...I mean, secret identity means I have things I'll have to communicate without broadcasting to observers or enemies. Assuming I have anyone to communicate them to—I think this secrecy thing will take a long time to get used to. I wonder what Merrick told the other girls about it. I make myself stop wondering that really quickly.


My new roommate hobbles through the door just as they're bringing in the supper cart. She "hobbles" because there's a cast on her right foot and she's on crutches, although she's pretty good at swinging herself around on the crutches. She's younger than I am. Her hair is jet-black, and her prominent glasses somehow make her look even younger, if that's possible.

She picks up her supper tray with one hand while supporting her weight on a crutch with the other, and I offer to carry it for her, but she says she can handle it. She maneuvers the tray to one of the tables one-handed. I read the nametag. Tasha something; I can't make out her last name.

I take my tray next to hers, although I still don't really feel like eating. I wonder what to say. What does one say to someone who's just been admitted to an institution, anyway?

"How are you?"

"Been better," she says.

More silence. "How did you get that cast on your leg?”

“Playing soccer.”

“I’m a cheerleader.”

“Oh.”

The question hangs in the air of course, from each of us: what are you in here for? But I’m not ready to ask it, and I have a feeling that Tasha isn’t either.

We eat in silence. So does everyone else; I guess when people think other people are crazy, they keep their distance.

I’ve given up on getting Tasha to talk any more that night, but she suddenly looks up from her tray and gives me this brilliant smile. “Uh…”

She’s looking for my name. “Buffy,” I say.

“Buffy, would you please get me a carton of milk from the fridge?”

There’s a refrigerator across the room with drinks and fruit that we can take at any time. I get up. “Sure,” I say. “What kind?”

“Two percent. Thanks.”





This story archived at: The Slayer\'s Fanfic Archive
The Slayer\\\\\\\\'s FanFic Archive - http://www.slayerfanfic.com/viewstory.php?sid=7509