Origin and Season One (Ch. 18)
Character: Buffy Summers
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1701
Setting: pre-Pilot
- Left Behind -
The fake leaves of the fake bamboo plants rippled gently in the current from the heat vent, scratching quietly against the wall. The room was so quiet, so oppressively silent, that the sound was like pins scraping down glass. No noises from the outside world penetrated the office. It was like sitting in a bubble-a very white, very square, very unpopable bubble-that had been furnished with fake plants and uncomfortable chairs. The windows featured a view of distant lights between the slats of their long venetian blinds, the only evidence of houses in the night.
Buffy directed her eyes away, down at her knees. She'd propped her feet against the chair arms and curled her hands in her lap, and she'd let her hair fall into her face. She wanted nothing more than to sink into the chair and through the floor, to let the Earth just swallow her and puke her back out on the other side of the planet. If she was lucky it would just hold her there, and she'd never have to return to the surface and face the world again.
She swallowed, pushing one of her shoes a little harder against the chair.
She hadn't slept or showered since those scant hours under the cemetery tree. That had been this morning, but it seemed like at least ten years had passed between those moments and now. She'd only recently arrived here from the precinct, where she'd given a statement that no one believed and directed a sketch artist to draw her attackers, who no longer existed. Before that she'd been taken to the hospital to be swabbed, poked, prodded, and questioned, and while she'd never in her life wanted to leave a place more, sitting in that little interview room without her family for hours on end had drained what little energy she'd had left.
When the officers had finally left her, she'd been looking forward to simply crawling into her bed and escaping from the world for the next ten to twenty hours, but then her parents had walked through the door with Katherine Kosseff on their heels.
She needed help, they'd said. No one was blaming her, no one expected her to go it alone, and she needed counseling. She needed something beyond their scope.
What she'd needed was sleep, but she hadn't said it. In fact, she'd said nothing. Beyond a few grunts of acknowledgment, she'd followed her parents from the precinct to their car in silence, and she'd spent the ride to wherever they'd gone dozing against the back seat window. She'd roused at her mother's hand on her shoulder, and then she'd stepped out into the cool November air to see a depressing box of a building squatting against the dark outline of a field. As she'd mounted the short steps leading to the front door she'd seen the sign: New Horizons Psychiatric Center.
A psych facility.
Both her parents had been shown to an office after she'd been brought to some kind of waiting area, and she'd taken a seat, unable to process what was going on.
She wasn't going over her life, wasn't picking apart all the things she could've done differently, wasn't thinking about Merrick or Tisha or all the things she'd lost. At this moment, she had nothing. Her entire world had been reduced to one single, ringing cone of light in her mind's eye, and she couldn't seem to focus on anything. No thoughts, no speculation. She was numb-mentally and physically.
She just kept staring, listening to the dull hum of the air vent and the scratching of the fake bamboo leaves against the wall. She couldn't hear anything that was going on in the other room, or anything that was going on in the rest of the world. She was sealed off, trapped, stuck.
She wanted to go, but she couldn't seem to move.
She didn't know how long she sat there like that before there were finally sounds from beyond the door, and then it opened. Her parents exited first, eying her with something that almost looked like grief, then Kosseff, then someone new. She didn't know who he was, and she stared at him blankly.
He was black, middle-aged, wearing a white coat, tie, and starched shirt. His wire-rimmed glasses were pushed high on his aquiline nose, and he looked...kind. Everything about him exuded calm confidence and empathy, and at that moment she hated him. The emotion flooded her soul, drowning out the numbness and heating her blood.
She knew instantly he was here to save her. She wanted to tell him that she didn't need to be saved, to hurl it at him, but she was paralyzed in the chair.
“Buffy,” Joyce said, “this is Dr. Stone, uh, Dr. Richard Stone. He works here at the center.”
Buffy said nothing, glaring at him.
“He's, um, going to be your doctor.”
Her mother was dancing around something, and her eyes slid to hers. “Doctor?” she repeated.
She shifted under her gaze, and Hank spoke, “He's, uh, going to help you, honey.”
“With what?” her voice was cold, hard.
Everyone glanced between themselves, and as one they moved toward her. Her parents settled at her side, and Stone sat in the chair she was facing, looking at her over her knees. Kosseff pulled up a chair.
“I know this is all happening quickly, Buffy,” Stone said, “but we're all concerned for your welfare.”
“You can shove your concern,” she said harshly. “I just want to go home.” She heard her mother inhale sharply behind her, and she turned to her, “Let's go home, Mom.”
“Buffy...” she said and hesitantly reached for one of her hands. “I'm sorry, you...you can't go home with us.”
Her stomach went into free fall. She swallowed, “What do you mean?”
Tears glazed her eyes, but her mother didn't cry. “You're...Buffy, you're going to have to stay here.”
“What?” she repeated. All the moisture had left her mouth, and the lights in the room seemed to be eighteen times brighter. She dropped her hand, scooting back in the inch or so of space the chair afforded her. “Mom...” she said.
She wouldn't meet her eyes.
Buffy looked at her dad, but he was just watching her with grief, like he was looking at her body, like she was dead and passed, as if she wasn't sitting right there. “Dad...” she said.
“I'm sorry, Buffy,” he said. He was holding Joyce's hand.
Buffy stared between them, then got up so abruptly the chair slammed back against the wall. “You're committing me,” she whispered. Kosseff and Stone were on their feet too, eying her as if she was a rabid dog on a threadbare leash. “You're committing me,” she said again, more loudly, hurling it at them like an accusation. “Poor Buffy's got a few too many screws loose, so let's toss her in the looney bin.”
“It may only be temporary,” Kosseff said.
“May?” she rounded on her. “And what if it's not? I don't belong here.” She looked at her parents, “Mom, Dad, tell them I don't belong here.”
They said nothing. Neither of them would meet her eyes.
“Buffy,” Stone said quietly, soothingly. It was probably his practiced talking-to-a-crazy-person voice. “We just want to keep you for observation. We want to make sure you're alright.”
“You already know I'm alright,” she sounded hysterical even to her own ears. “Didn't the hospital tell you? I wasn't raped. No one touched me.”
“No, but you were in that alley. You watched your friend die, and you got hurt yourself. You've experienced a serious trauma, Buffy, and you need to deal with it.”
“I am dealing with it. I'll deal with it better at home, in my own bed. Mom, please,” she stared at her mother, willing her to look at her, “please, take me home.”
“I can't,” she whispered to her hands, voice cracking.
If her stomach had been in free fall, it hit the floor now. Her heart felt like it had been suspended in a bath of acid. “Please,” she pleaded.
“With any luck, you'll be home before you know it,” Stone said.
She turned on him, “I don't even get a choice in this?”
“No,” he said evenly, firmly. “For now anyway.”
She did have a choice, she thought wildly, staring at him. She could use his head to break through the window, and then she could run. Even as she stood there she could feel the air thickening into something unbreathable, suffocating. The room had been small to begin with, but now it felt like a prison, and she didn't know what she was facing now. Would they even allow her outside? Had that brief walk from the car to the building been her last experience in open air?
She could feel panic setting in, and Stone seemed to sense it. “We need to get her checked in,” he said, looking behind her, at her parents. “You've already signed the paperwork. I think it's best if you go.”
Buffy was rooted to the floor. Checked in. They were leaving. Oh, god, they were leaving her behind.
She whirled. Her parents were already on their feet, and she stared at them.
Her entire world was falling apart.
“Buffy,” Joyce said, stepping forward. She seemed to want to hug her, but Buffy backed away.
“Don't touch me,” she growled.
“Buffy,” she said again, coming ever closer. She held out her hand, “Honey...”
“Don't touch me!” the growl became a snarl, and she backed up several steps. “Go, just...go.” She looked down at the floor, catching her lip hard between her teeth.
Her parents seemed to stand there for a few seconds, as if undecided, and then her mom turned to meet her dad, and they slowly walked away. Buffy was left standing there, staring at the ugly, speckled carpet, flanked on either side by psychiatrists.
The realization hit her with the force of a tidal wave.
She'd been forsaken.
<<< Previous Chapter Next Chapter >>>