“Buffy, I’d like to talk about your other life.” Lorne began. “Take a detailed history if I may?”

“You mean the imaginary life.” Said Buffy dryly.

“No, not at all.”

“Don’t shrink me.” Said Buffy, harshly.

Lorne sat forward. “Buffy, I’m not trying to shrink you. I swear. I view this situation like Einstein would have.”

“Einstein?”

“Yeah, he had this fantastic theory that everything was relative. OK, I know he was talking about science but I believe that too. Ask any two people about the same situation and you’ll get a different story. I don’t do things like other psychiatrists Buffy, that’s not my style. I just want you to tell me your story.”

Buffy sighed. She didn’t really want to go over this again and receive the Um’s and Aah’s that just screamed, “How insane are you!”

But she kind of liked Lorne. He was unorthodox. Maybe he wouldn’t do that.

Buffy began with the burning of the gym and the move to Sunnydale.

Lorne didn’t Um and Aah at her. He asked questions, sympathised with her, laughed with her. Not once did he undermine her other life.

It was over five hours later when they finished. Lorne looked over his notes. He had a detailed version of a ficticious life. But a life he was sure had a grounding in reality somewhere. She had used aspects of her own life in this world, such as her handling of Angel leaving. In this life was the answer he was looking for.

“Well that’s it with the questions for today.” He said putting the pad aside. “I just want to check you over again, make sure taking you off the drugs hasn’t caused any physical problems, then we’ll go back to the others.”

“Sure. OK.”


Buffy walked in to see the whole group going through files and papers.

“What’s going on?” asked Buffy.

“Nothing.” Said Angel quickly. He saw Lorne shake his head taking it as a sign not to lie to her. “OK, it’s not nothing. This is a complete history of your life and your classmates. Or as much as we have so far, we’re still looking into some people.”

Buffy nodded but looked frightened.

“What is it?” Angel asked.

“Nothing. You wont find anything. I’m just insane. This isn’t real anyway so you might as well go ahead and look.”

That was the second time Buffy had mentioned this reality nor being real. Angel would have to talk about that with Lorne later.

“So, what have we got?” asked Lorne.

The others read out the information. Willow and Xander took the notes about Buffy and her schoolmates. Angel read the notes made from the medical file. Lorne sat there looking over his notes of Buffy’s other life as they went.

“There’s a pattern here.” Said Lorne simply once they were finished. “We don’t have all the pieces here but it seems clear someone’s trying to kill Buffy.”

“Kill her?” asked Angel.

Lorne nodded. “Perhaps not physically kill her but someone wanted to destroy the essence of what Buffy was so she would no longer be a threat.”

“A threat to what though?” asked Angel. Buffy came over to him looking scared and he pulled her onto his lap.

Lorne sighed. “I don’t have all the answers yet but this is what I can tell you.”

He fished around for the medical notes he had made. “Buffy was sent to the Seaview clinic originally. She was already having delusions. They did a blood test but they didn’t do a drug test according to the file. I think the file has been altered though. I think a drug test was done and something was found.” Lorne could see Angel was about to interrupt so he held up his hand. “Just hear me out. So, she’s at the clinic, gets better and is released. She relapses, quite violently and is sent to a different clinic where her internal world begins to form more. Before she went there her delusions were temporary, she could still interact with the rest of the world.”

Lorne looked down at his notes again, “She didn’t completely revert into her own world until she was in the second clinic. Now from here this is speculation. Buffy’s internal world was created only partly by her. I think someone else has been trying to drive her out of the real world and then shatter her internal world.” He sighed. “Her internal world was her only form of defence against what was happening to her. Take that away and she had nothing.”

“What does that mean?” asked angel.

“Essentially she would be a vegetable. No higher brain activity. They would have killed Buffy off.”

“That’s a big step Hunny.” Said Kathy.

“I know but hear me out. In Buffy’s world, Sunnydale, there are always challenges for her. She is a superhero though. I think becoming a slayer was the only way, mentally, she could beat the things being thrown at her. Now, just after she gets there she makes a life for herself. She’s brought her friends with her to this place, she even brought Angel. She was happy. Then things start to happen, this Master vampire was rising but she stopped him. She tried to make a life for herself, form relationships but every time she tried something tried to stop her. Xander was possessed, Angel turned out to be a vampire, but Buffy over came all those obstacles. Then the Master killed Buffy but still she wouldn’t give in. She had Angel and Xander revive her and she defeated this creature. Next Angel turns bad, so bad she has to kill him and it destroys her. If they couldn’t kill Buffy then why not make her kill someone she loves. And it almost worked. But Buffy returned to her friends. She even managed to bring Angel back to life.”

“So your saying someone was creating this life for her?” asked Angel.

“Partly. They tried to destroy the world she was in, make it as hard as they could for her to live there. But Buffy’s strong, she wouldn’t let them and overcame every tragedy they put there for her. They even, finally managed to make her kill herself at one point but instead of giving in Buffy found her way back to this reality again. When they realised they couldn’t shatter her internal world and destroy her, I think they give her more drugs and pushed her back into her other life. Between the two of them they created this world.”

“But you cant just create something like this.” Said Angel. “And besides, she was having delusions before she went in.”

Lorne nodded. “I know. I have a theory about that too.” He paused. “I think Buffy was given a hallucinogen.”

“What, like LSD?”

“Or magic mushrooms, there are hundreds if types out there. But someone hallucinating can present like a schizophrenic, which is why she was diagnosed as such. Unfortunately the drugs to treat schizophrenic can make the sane person schizophrenic. I think that’s why Buffy’s been trapped in this world and why she responded so fast when we took her off the drugs. The Lab results are also higher than her chart says. So while she hasn’t been given illegal drugs in hospital, someone has been over dosing her on these drugs.”

Angel looked down to Buffy sitting on his lap. She was gently sobbing. He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her. His thoughts alternating between respect for this child who had been forced to endure that and anger at who ever had done it. They would pay.

“So” began willow, “we still need to find out what happened to Buffy originally. Why she was sent to the clinic for the first two weeks.”

Buffy obviously hadn’t confided in Willow since she was as clueless as the rest of them. He wondered if Buffy even remembered after everything that had happened to her.

Angel picked up the phone from beside him on the table and called Mel.

“Sorry Mel, I have another project for you.”

“Don’t worry about it. I live for stress.” She said light heartedly.

“I want to see if any of Buffy’s class mates has any kind of criminal record. Also check their families. Finally I want all the doctors of the Sunny Hill Clinic checked out, completely including criminal records again, especially a Dr Lansing.”

“OK, not a problem.” Mel paused. “Can I ask what this is about? I know you only just got here but the bosses don’t appreciate company resources being used for personal projects.”

“I understand that. But trust me, if we find what we want we’ll be looking at the biggest medical negligence claim you’ve ever seen.”

“OK, we’ll get right on it.”

Angel hung up the phone and looked at his watch. “It’s getting late, we should all turn in.”

Everyone agreed, it had been a long day. Angel offered Willow and Xander a bed but they refused. They left promising to return as soon as they could though. Angel made them promise not to tell anyone about Buffy’s improvement. The fewer people who knew, the safer Buffy was.

Lorne and Kathy went to their room and Angel settled Buffy in hers. He lay next to her again and took her hand.

They didn’t speak, they just slowly drifted off to sleep.