TITLE: 'Out of Africa' 11/?
AUTHOR: Pythia
E-MAIL: pythia@tiscali.co.uk
DISCLAIMER: The characters are the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Sandollar Productions, Kuzui Enterprises, 20th Century Fox Television and the UPN Television Network. The story is written for the pleasure of the author and readers, and has no lucrative purpose whatsoever. Please do not reproduce this story anywhere without the author's consent.

POSTING NOTES: *.* is for emphasis. {.} denotes thought and [.] implies translation from another language.

The ICU was quiet, a place of muted activity and anxious expectations. Its purposeful, attentive atmosphere was a long way from the hustle and panic of the emergency room, but somehow it retained that sense of tension, that feel of impending crisis. Subtle noises whispered at the bare edge of perception, the rhythmic wheezes of life sustaining machinery, the pulsing note of heart monitors, the soft ache of someone weeping. It was a place wreathed in despair and hope, a home for looming death and the defiant declaration of life, an affirmation of the sheer stubbornness of the human spirit.

Angel didn't quite know what to make of it all.

Buffy led him through the maze; past darkened cubicles where old men clung to their mortality with the help of heart and lung machines; past islands of activity where doctors and nurses swarmed like disturbed ants to counter momentary crisis; and past empty, expectant beds, waiting for occupancy, waiting to support the desperate balance between life and death, waiting to cradle the dying and give them back the promise of life. At the end of the corridor was yet another of the glass fronted, curtained cubicles.

In *that* was the empty shell of a man.

Empty.

The vampire could sense it as soon as he stepped through the door, as soon as his perceptions adjusted to the impact of this technological womb. He was greeted by the murmur of active monitors and the brief stir of Xander's alarm as he woke from semi-slumber. He could measure the young man's pounding heart beat and - counter-pointing it - the slow steady pulse from the figure on the bed. While Xander's anxious, embarrassed presence was bright and unmistakable, he could catch no hint, not even a whisper, of the soul that was uniquely Rupert Giles.

"How is he?" Buffy asked, getting hesitant, reluctant words in return. Angel moved to stand at the foot of the bed, looking down at its occupant with a puzzled frown. The man's body was at rest, functioning with comfortable efficiency; his heart was beating with a slow and steady cadence, sending blood flowing through veins and arteries alike; and his chest rose and fell with equally steady confidence, drawing in air and expelling warm breath. But no-one was home. Even a vampire, a dead thing with no soul, had more presence than this.

"The doctors don't know what to make of it," Xander said worriedly. "They got him - all hooked up to - to these monitory things." His hands waved vaguely at the bank of equipment behind the bed. It included a rank of monitors displaying patterns of light and colour, fed by innumerable wires which snaked down to wreath the sleeper in a tangled web. "They're *saying* all the convulsy, short circuitage has stopped, but - they don't know if that's a good thing or not. It might just be the medication - and apparently they've got to cut back on that. The stuff they've been using? It's - um - dangerous or something. Over the long term? I - I didn't really get all the medical techno-babble, but I got the problem. Too many drugs," he glanced over at the silent figure on the bed and winced, "brain dead Giles. They want him to wake up."

Buffy stepped closer, to look down as Angel was doing, to study the slack, pale face against the pillows. "So do I," she said, three little words filled with quiet pain.

The vampire shivered, knowing how hard this was for her. How much harder was he about to make it? "It may already be too late," he said, soft words, reluctantly spoken. Buffy's head jerked in his direction, her eyes filled with alarm.

"*No,*" she breathed, denying the possibility, challenging him to justify his claim. Angel felt her fear go through him like a knife.

"He's not *here*, Buffy." He tried to make his words gentle - but they couldn't be, couldn't possibly be, given what he had to say. "There's nothing here. Just an empty shell."

"What?" Buffy frowned at him, not understanding what he meant. Not *wanting* to understand. Xander's expression was equally bemused.

"Hello," the young man said, waving at the shimmer of the monitor screens. "We got heartbeat, we got autonomic response thingys, we even got brain activity. Not a *lot* of brain activity," he admitted, frowning at the relevant monitor. "But he's in this - deep sleep thing … A fug they called it - or - or something like that."

"Fugue," Angel corrected distractedly. It was possible, possible that the man had sunk so deep that nothing of himself remained to be perceived on the surface. If that was the case, then retrieving him would be nothing short of a miracle - but if it *wasn't* … The vampire didn't know what to think. Didn't know what sort of sorcery could wreak such damage, or if there were any way to counter its effect. "I can see why they'd think that. Xander - his body is functioning, but - as far as I can tell - there's no-one in it. He's just - gone."

"You're *wrong*," Buffy concluded, her voice contained but tight with anger. "It's just a spell. That's all it is. *She* did this. He's in there. Somewhere. Fighting to be free of her. Fighting to get *back*."

"Back from where, exactly?" Xander had this anxious, 'I really don't want to think about this' look on his face. Buffy wasn't the only one who'd be devastated by losing the Watcher. He'd become a supportive figure to all of the Scooby gang - and was that such a surprise, given their own, dysfunctional families? Buffy only had her mother; Xander's home life was one of drunken disputes and bitter sniping; Willow's parents ignored her most of the time; and Angel wasn't even sure if Oz *had* parents. Compare all that to the constant, certain presence of one man, who, committed to his cause and only too aware of the risks they all took, was still prepared to support them and *listen* to them. True, he had a tendency to fuss and fret, and might sometimes express impatience with their youth or frustration at his own failure to understand them, but he did all that because he cared, because he had come to love them - and they loved him back, each in their own way, each accepting his place in their lives with confident, comfortable familiarity.

"I don't know," Buffy admitted, sinking into the chair that Xander had abandoned and reaching to wrap her hand around limp, unresponsive fingers. "But I'm not giving up on him. Because I know - wherever he is - he's still …" The end of the sentence was swallowed with a gulp, her heart clinging to hope while the evidence shredded it into desperate tatters. She glanced up, seeking Angel's anxious eyes with a look of haunted intensity. "Find her," she ordered tightly. "Tear this town apart if you have to, but *find* her. And - Angel?" she asked as he turned to leave.

"Yes?"

"Be careful. I don't want to lose you too …"

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