Mac was nothing but worried ever since she had been contacted by a girl who said her name was Tara, and that she was calling on the behalf of Ash. The request that she meet him at the hospital wasn't even second guessed. Ash and Buffy had helped her when she found herself free of Wolfram and Hart, and now that a chance to repay one of them for all they had done was made available, Mac was going to do all she could. Even if the teen didn't know what exactly might be required of her.
"You didn't have to come all the way up here." Mac said softly to Brayden when they stepped out of the elevator on the floor Rachelle's room was located on. Mac appreciated Bray's giving her a ride to the hospital rather then letting her walk the distance, but she knew he feelings in regards to Ash and would have understood if he would have decided to wait for her down in the main lobby of the hospital.
Ohhhh, did Bray ever have hostility toward Ash. When your girlfriend still holds a torch for a guy? You tend to want to hit him. A lot. But this was for Rachelle. His aunt. And if that creepy little bastard thought he might be able to help, then... how could he not assist? Besides... after a very successful talk with Damian, Mac was now not only Bray's best friend but his roommate.
"For you and for Aunt Chelle? I think I can put aside my burning desire to punch Kowalski in the mouth."
"Thank you." Mac murmured softly as the pair reached the door of the hospital room Rachelle was being kept in. Giving a gentle knock to announce to anyone in the room, aside from the comatose Rachelle, that they had company, Mac placed a hand on the door to slowly ease it open and then peered inside the room.
"Ash?"
Awkward moment? Definitely. Ash and Brayden gave each other a dirty glare, but each had the courtesy to not say anything. Ash looked at Mac and sighed. "Mackenzie... The girl that called you, she unintentionally gave me an idea: do you think you could use your... gifts to comunicate with Rachelle? Try to find out what happened to her?"
"I... " Mac then dared a glance of uncertainty to Brayden before giving Ash her full attention once more. "I'll try." Her voice barely a whisper when she answered. Mac was unsure about things now, but the teen wasn't about to refuse the request Ash put to her.
"Thank you." He said, a tinge of both desperation AND hopefulness to his voice, although it could have just as easily have been directed at Brayden for not starting anything. "Do you need us to leave you and Rachelle alone here?"
"I need for someone to make sure that we're not disturbed." Mac told Ash as she set her bag on the floor just to the side of the door. The teen didn't want anyone wandering in not knowing what was going on and chance being wakened before she could find out what happened to Rachelle.
"Fine." Ash looked at Brayden then. "You want to be shitty with me about this later, fine. For now, for HER sake, shut up and just listen. Go down by the nurses station. If anyone starts coming to this room, get over here and tell me. I'll stay outside the room, try to distract anyone into leaving us all alone. Mackenzie? Do what you do best."
"I'll do what I can." Mac sent a soft smile to Ash and then to Rachelle's bedside a moment to look at the unconscious young woman before Mac settled herself into one of the chairs. Letting her head fall back to rest against the back of the chair with her eyes slipping closed.
Imagine being more or less trapped in a series of dreams. That was how it was for Rachelle right now. In her comatose state, her mind flitted in and out from one dream to the next, mostly of important and happy moments from her life: the times she spent hanging out with her dad, her first time jamming with the Van Warrens, the first show she played with Suicide Messiah. Now? She was replaying the day she and Neely got married. It was an odd feeling, standing there in the stands at Fenway Park, looking at yourself getting married on the pitcher's mound. She crossed her arms, vaguely aware this was a dream, and sighed: "Dammit. I KNEW that outfit made my ass look big..."
It hadn't taken Mac long to drift into a semi sound sleep and then find her way into Rachelle's dream. The teen watched from the fringes of the girl's dreamland for the moment as she had entered the comatosed girl's dream as it shifted seamlessly from Rachelle's first performance with Suicide Messiah into the one of her getting married. None of this, though, was of help to Mac in trying to find the cause or reason behind the young woman's attack and resulting comatose state. Mac would just have to linger and see what other dreamscapes that would find their way into the mind of the red head.
Finally, the girl began to replay the scene that had happened to her. As though she were a third party to it. Watching it, she felt her eyes well up with tears as she started to realize something, which she voiced aloud to nobody: "shit... I'm dead, aren't I?"
"No, Rachelle, you're not." The voice seeming to come from somwhere off to the young woman's side almost in the same instant that the dream seemed to fade from the horrific one Mac had witnessed back to one of a more happy time. The young woman's wedding at Femway Park. Mac knew she couldn't bear to witness what had happened to Rachelle any longer without waking herself. The only thing that she felt she could do was take the woman back to a previous dream that Mac herself had been taken into.
"Ok, so that's a bonus." Rachelle said wryly, trying not to break down. "If I'm not dead, then I can't wake up for some reason. Whoever you are... are you able to like... get messages back to the people who are awake? Or are you just some voice in my head because I'm going crazy from trying to wake up?"
"I'm not some voice in your head, Rachelle," Mac told the woman stepping up from Rachelle's side so the young woman could actually see her. "And I think it's better that you not wake up at this time," with the condition that Mac had witnessed Rachelle being in it was the teen's thought that it was better she was still comatosed so that her body could continue to heal unhindered. "I can get messages to people for you, there are quite a few who are quite worried about you." The dreamwalker informed the young woman. Even though she only saw Ash when she arrived at Rachelle's room, Mac knew that there had to be others concerned for the young woman's well being.
"I have three people I need you to say things to, ok? It means a lot to me."
Rachelle had about a zillion things going through her mind, but four things stood out.
"Tell Skylar she's truly my best friend? And that I hope she and Ben have a long happy life and so many kids that they can have their own little league team. Tell Neely I love her. That she's the only thing in life that's ever made me happy. And that if I don't wake up? That being her wife was the best thing I ever did with my life. And tell Ash..." she gulped here, trying not to fall apart, even in this... this dream world. "Tell him to take care of my Neely, ok? To never let anyone or anything hurt her."
After a pause, she sighed and added something.
"Oh. And tell Neely to please shave me? Dead or alive, I really don't want my cooch lookin' like fucking Chewbacca, ok?"
"You will wake up." Mac told the young woman, though she wasn't sure exactly when that would be, Mac was under the impression that it would in due time. It would probably depend on how her injuries continued to mend themselves. "I'll deliver your messages, but you need to tell me who put you in this condition." Mac had witnessed the vivid dream of what had happened to Rachelle, but the teen couldn't puzzle together the who or why of the whole savage attack. The most important missing piece being that it had happened while Rachelle had been asleep.
"I don't know!" She said, clearly frustrated. "That cunt Morrison got me all upset, and I went out drinking. I like... dozed off briefly at the bar, had this weird dream where this scary, fang-y demon guy was trying to kill me by crucifying me and shit, next thing you know I wake up impaled in an alley, I see Ethan coming to help me... Then blammo, I'm out of it." Yep. Professional storyteller? One job Rachelle would NEVER have.
That information came as a shock to Mac, so much so that the teen had to fight against the urge to will herself awake at that instant. And while Rachelle didn't seem aware of what had actually happened to her, Mac had abruptly come to that realization. "I... I have to go... "The teen giving a worried look around the dreamscape before she seemed to poof from Rachelle's dream.
Mac gasped as her eyes snapped open to the dimly lit hospital room, the teen's knuckles white as she slowly felt the tight grip her fingers had on the arms of the chair she sat on.
"Mackenzie..." Ash said soothingly as she jolted awake, and brushed her hair back sweetly with his hand. "Did... Did you communicate with her?" From the look on her face? One way or the other he wasn't expecting good news.
The touch, as gentle as it was, caused Mac to instinctively shrink back from Ash almost as if she were trying to disappear into the chair. It took the girl a few seconds to register just who was in the room with her, and after a couple deep breathes and worried look cast Ash's way, Mac finally spoke. "She needs to wake up. She's in danger, Ash."
"...dammit." He sighed, having sworn to Neely that he'd protect Rachelle. "So how do we do it? And did she say anything?"
"I don't know," Mac sighed feeling quite helpless at the moment. "She's in a coma for a reason, Ash. Her body suffered tremendous damage and being in an unconscious state is probably the best way for it to heal, but if she remains in her comatose state too much longer whatever did this could find out that Rachelle survived the ordeal and find its way back into her dreams to finish the job." Mac draw her legs up to hug them to her chest as she sat there in the chair. "She asked for me to tell someone named Skylar that she's her best friend, and that she and Ben have a long, happy life and many kids. She wants someone named Neely to know that she loves her and that she's the only thing in life that's ever made her happy. And that being her wife was the best thing she ever did with her life." Mac took a deep breath then looking up to catch Ash's eyes as she started to deliver the last message she had gotten from Rachelle. "She said to tell you to take care of Neely. To never let anyone or anything hurt her."
"Shit." Was all Ash could think of to say. For her to want him to take care of Neely? Rachelle really didn't think she was going to wake up. Which was BAD. "I'm gonna go get that doctor. Um... McDonald, I think her name is. She works with supernatural shit, maybe she can think of some way to protect Rachelle from this thing getting to her again until we can figure out exactly who or what it is." He leaned in and hugged the girl sweetly, trying to calm her. "Thank you, dear. Even in... a worst-case scenario, you'll have given her family a sense of closure."
"The only way to protect her is to keep whatever it is out of her dreams, Ash, or for Rachelle to wake up. Or... " Mac took a deep breath then before attempting to continue. "Have someone in her dreams to help her if the demon-thing re-enters one of her dreams." Mac didn't think Ash or anyone he knew would know how to do that. Mac was unsure if she'd be able to battle another dreamwalker type. Sure she could twist and control dreams, even do great harm to the dreamer, but going up against one of her own was something she had no experience with.
"Then we're going to figure something out. I will NOT let anyone do anything that's going to hurt Neely." Ash wasn't trying to act cold about Rachelle... he was just at the point where few people really mattered to him. And right now? Neely was one of those few. He looked at Mac again, another of those few people, and couldn't help but ask... "Mackenzie? What exactly is going on between you and Brayden Bale? I worry about your safety around him."
"He's become a real good friend, Ash," Mac smiled lightly, "probably the best friend I ever had. You don't have to worry so much about when I'm with him." Which now was pretty constant as Mac was living with the guy in his suite at the hotel.
"I respect you enough to not give you a hard time here, Mackenzie. But if he ever hurts you, uses you, or disrespects you in ANY way..." His voice turned darkly calm there, and his eyes started to turn black. "I will destroy him."
"He won't, Ash." Mac told him as confidently as she could. "I appreciate your concern," she said, "but Brayden would never intentionally hurt me." She knew Brayden Bale better then most people as she had somehow gotten through that barrier he built up around himself. All most people saw was the facade of a mask he wore to keep people from seeing the true Brayden Bale.
"I hope he's the person you think he is." Mostly because dear sweet LORD the shit that would hit the fan if he ends up hurting Meredith. "Anyway... Mackenzie... if you're willing to help us here, I have an idea. Can you write down for me ANY little detail you remember of the dreamworld she was hurt in, if you saw it? I want to research it, and see if we can pinpoint who or what hurt her. And while I'm doing that... I want you and your... friend... to get anyone you can think of who might be able to rally together on this."
"One thing about dreams, they are quite vivid." To Mac it compared to watching a film in a movie theater. "I can write it down in detail, Ash." Mac told him as she stood up from the chair. "Anything you need I'm here for you, Ash. Anything." She wasn't sure how Brayden would feel about helping out, but Mac would in almost any way possible.