TITLE: The Plant of the Soul (3/10)
AUTHOR: dermawoman (smkwandr@rcn.com)
PAIRING/S: W/K, B/G, ?!/?!, and ?!/?!/?!.
RATING/S: This chapter, G/PG; some medical descriptions not for the squeamish.
SUMMARY: April 2004: Buffy and Giles will marry in Rome soon; Ethan needs a bone marrow infusion; any guesses who the matching donor is?
DISCLAIMER/S: The characters belong to Joss, the production companies, and the horde of studios. The information on bone marrow transplants is condensed; actual treatment would last months. A patient receiving a transplant would not leave a sterile ICU environment, to protect against infection. Mass Gen is real, and Dana-Farber is a world-class cancer research institute; their use implies no approval or fact-checking; I'm just using them for realistic background. I'm changing the formatting of my source document in WordPerfect to eliminate a few kinks when it posts. Underlining and italics haven't been posting, so I'll mark _underlines_ like this and <italics> like that. Those of you who know that Richard Biggs died recently know why I put in Dr. Franklin. Send or post feedback; I promise that Chapter 4 will be steamy. DermaWoman.
It was the middle of the night in Rome. Kennedy had called the day before to tell them when Willow and the Salem witches would perform the extraction spell. Buffy faced in front of an unlit fireplace, her tread muffled by a lush Persian carpet. Dawn, Xander, and Andrew sat in armchairs around the room. Giles knelt in a circle like Willow's, crisp khaki trousers stretched over his powerful thighs, his feet bare, an untucked white shirt partially unbuttoned, revealing a glimpse of his muscular chest, its sleeves neatly turned up to show equally muscular biceps, the palms of his hands resting lightly upon his thighs. With him in the circle were maps, incense, candles, and crystals.
Buffy suddenly stopped pacing. "Can you hear him? Low, quick, muffled, terrified, he comes. Can you feel him?" She said to Giles. He looked up at her, surprised.
"Hear what?" Andrew asked; he and Xander looked at each other, confused.
The crystals hummed, glowing as if lit from within, and one clear quartz stone placed upon the map's Italy slid across the Atlantic and rested north of Cape Cod and Boston. It glowed faintly purple, then faded, and Giles looked up at Buffy. "He's out," he said, "Ethan's free. Call Willow, I want to talk to him."
Buffy grabbed the phone on the side table and called Willow. "Can Giles speak with Ethan?" she asked eagerly. Her face became a frozen mask and a shiver ran up her spine; Giles was at her side in an instant.
"What is it? What's the matter with Ethan?" Buffy hung up the phone, shaking her head once. "Why didn't you let me speak with him?"
"He can't speak now. Willow and the priestess said that Ethan has been given large doses of magick-inhibiting drugs, and they believe he's been in solitary confinement for two or more years." Buffy said quietly, too quietly. "He's very ill; the drugs have damaged his bone marrow." She held out her arms, and Giles stepped into her embrace. She hugged him tightly, his head tucked into her neck, to hide his tears from the others in the room.
"I'm packing," Dawn said, "I'm coming with you."
"No, start making calls tomorrow morning," Buffy said. "I'm delaying the wedding until we know that Ethan is healthy again." Giles lifted his head.
"Buffy, are you sure?" he asked. "You don't know--"
"--I don't know how serious it is," she replied. "We won't solve this in a weekend. Willow and the priestess believe Ethan's critically ill; it could take weeks or months for him to recover." <If at all>, she thought, and she didn't want to present that alternative to Giles.
Giles wanted to leave the next morning, but Buffy explained that they needed to be prepared for a long stay, which meant packing and planning. It took two days for Buffy and Dawn to cancel the wedding preparations. Xander and Andrew were put in temporary charge of Slayer Central in Rome, although Giles worried that they wouldn't be suited to the task.
They arrived in Boston in early evening, just after the afternoon traffic had cleared the local highways. Buffy could tell that Giles was very worried about Ethan's health. Kennedy and Joseph met them at the airport. After introductions, Kennedy explained that Ethan had been moved to a cancer research hospital because of his condition. Buffy convinced Giles that it would be better to visit Ethan the next day, after getting a sound night's sleep, although she knew he wouldn't.
"He was taken to the local hospital and we wondered how we were going to explain his condition," Willow said over dinner at Tavvy's, "but Tavvy just whispered to the ER doctor, and they worked very hard on him, ignoring problems like not having any i.d. or insurance."
"I have Ethan's passport," Giles said, "I've arranged for him to have insurance through the new Watcher's Council."
"What in the world did you say to them?" Buffy asked. "What did you do, cast a spell?"
"Close," Tavvy smiled; "I said that Ethan went on an astral retreat and had gotten lost between the worlds, and so much magical work is done in this area that they don't ask questions."
"What's Ethan's condition now?" Giles asked anxiously.
"After being in the local hospital for dialysis and overnight observation," Tavvy said, "the doctor decided he need to go to Massachusetts General--Mass Gen--in Boston because the blood tests were coming back still messed up."
"At Mass Gen, the bone marrow thing came up, and the specialists sent him to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute," Willow added.
"I thought he was supposed to come back to the local hospital," Buffy said.
"He's staying because the specialists at Dana-Farber don't know the cause of Ethan's bone marrow problem," Tavvy said, "and of course, if we tried to explain, it wouldn't be believed anyway."
"Everyone has Band-Aids on their arms," Dawn pointed out, "It's not contagious, is it?"
"Of course not, silly," Willow said, hitting her with a bread stick, "the specialists are looking for bone marrow donors who match Ethan's type. Blood type and other typing factors must match for the marrow to be compatible, and we donated blood. We haven't heard back yet if there's a match."
"How many people have donated blood?" Buffy asked.
"Everybody in Tavvy and Joseph's coven and their friends and neighbors," Kennedy answered, "and about two-thirds of the covens in the area. They're very public-spirited here; if somebody needs help, someone's always organizing a prayer circle, or a fund-raiser, or something, like a blood drive."
"Shouldn't we donate blood, too?" Dawn asked.
"There's a questionnaire you have to fill out," Willow said, and you _have_ to be honest; it's Ethan's life on the line."
Buffy, Dawn, and Giles donated blood samples at the hospital, and they waited anxiously for results as the matching tests were run. The doctor met with each of them privately to review the results. Dawn was ruled out because she did not have enough matching factors. The doctor and Giles had an acrimonious discussion because Giles also was rejected as a potential donor, having been to South America in the past six months.
"Rupert doesn't seem very happy," Buffy noted as she entered the specialist's tiny office, closing the door.
"Mr. Giles had to be eliminated from consideration because of the frequency of travel to medically dangerous locations," said Dr. Franklin, the African-American doctor.
"He really cares about Ethan," Buffy said, "they were very close friends back in the 70s, and you know how it is, people grow apart, do things that you don't agree with, but Rupert really wants Ethan at our wedding. He wants to mend their broken friendship."
"Unfortunately, he won't be mending it in this way, Ms. Summers," Franklin said briskly, "however, your blood has all six necessary typing factors that match Mr. Rayne's, and a seventh factor not considered important enough to be included in the criteria. How soon can you check in for the procedure?"
Buffy was speechless. Of course, her Slayer-enhanced bone marrow would meet Ethan's needs. "What--what does it involve?"
"You check in the day before the procedure, we run another set of tests to verify the results," Franklin said; "a small hole is bored into your upper leg bone, from which a small amount of bone marrow is extracted; some is kept in reserve. A dose of marrow is injected into Mr. Rayne; normally, it's absorbed by his bones and begins producing red blood cells within a month. If not, some of your bone marrow would be injected directly into his upper leg bones and shoulder blades, and we would hope to see red blood cells within a month."
"But I don't stay here a whole month, do I?" Buffy asked.
"Most bone marrow donors stay two or three days, why?" Franklin replied.
"It sounds silly, but I don't want Rupert to know I'm doing this," Buffy explained; "he'll get very concerned about my health; is there any way I can leave sooner, like the next day?"
"Patients are kept that long to make sure they don't sustain any serious injuries to the leg bone or their muscles," the doctor said.
"I heal very fast." Buffy and the doctor made the appointment for the day after tomorrow. As she was about to leave his office, she asked, "You won't tell Ethan who donated the bone marrow, will you?"
"No, of course not," Dr. Franklin replied. "Doctor-patient confidentiality works in both directions; why are you concerned?"
"Rupert would worry about my health, and, well, Ethan and I haven't been friendly in the past, but I want to change that," Buffy said; "I think he'd die of embarrassment--figuratively speaking--if he found out it was my bone marrow saving his life."
"He won't find out from me," Dr. Franklin said as she left.
When Buffy rejoined Dawn and Giles, she said her blood didn't match either and was wrenched by Giles's troubled expression. Back in Salem that afternoon, she had Dawn and Joseph distract Giles while she went for a walk with Willow and Tavvy, telling them the truth, and that she couldn't stay away from Giles for three days would telling him why. Willow decided that a healing circle with Slayers in it would help Buffy recover faster and called Faith in Washington state to ask her to help.
Buffy, Dawn, Willow, Kennedy, and Tavvy lied to Giles about going into Boston, saying they were staying at a spa in the city. Buffy checked into the hospital for the tests; the doctor accelerated the procedure, extracting the marrow as soon as the test results were confirmed. Tavvy and Willow picked up Faith and Wood at the airport later that day.
Dawn, Willow, Tavvy, the witches, Faith, and Kennedy helped Buffy recover, surprising the doctors. Instead of a three- or four-day hospital stay, Franklin released her the next day, enabling the crowd to make a quick getaway before Giles and Joseph arrived at the hospital. The women actually had time to visit a day-spa on Newbury Street for pedicures, manicures, and facials before racing back to the hospital, where a relieved Giles told them a matching donor had been located, and the procedure would take place the next day.