Fanfiction: One More Sad Song
When night fell across Sunnydale, coating the town in a nearly palpable evening heat, the duo put their plan into action. Faith, eager to fight and get her aggressions out, obediently stayed at the factory while Spike got into his car and drove to Angel’s mansion. For the plan to work, he needed to confront both Buffy and Angel at the same time, and he was certain that they would be together at the mansion, probably before going out on patrol later. Some things never changed, honestly, and Buffy and Angel appeared to be one of those things.
It made Spike sick.
But it wouldn’t be for much longer, not if he and Faith had anything to say about it. Pulling up below the mansion, he screeched to a stop by slamming on the brakes. Glad to be rid of the blanket, which was quickly becoming the bane of his existence, even more so than Angel, he threw open the door and stepped into the night. The temperature was still too hot for his taste, but his stubbornness to keep up his image prevented him from tossing aside his heavy coat. Shutting the door, he lit up a cigarette, its fickle light playing small shadows up and down his face. His eyes narrowed as he considered the mansion, then he set off for the front door, the coat moving with a life of its own.
“Any word about Faith?” Angel was asking, seated once more by the fireplace. His body was never warmer than room temperature, and it felt nice to be near something warm, even if it wasn’t the warm thing he would’ve liked.
Buffy was pacing about, arms crossed over her chest. Dressed to go out on patrol, she was fidgety and didn’t feel like sitting around, waiting for something to happen.
“I haven’t heard from her for days,” she said, sounding unconcerned. “It’s not unusual. You’d think she was a ninja the way she sneaks around Sunnydale.”
“Oh,” was all Angel had to say in return. This whole situation obviously irritated Buffy, and though he personally had nothing against Faith, he would side with Buffy on the issue. “Are we patrolling tonight?”
“Well, I’m patrolling tonight.” Buffy came to a halt, momentarily ceasing her movement to glare at Angel. “I just don’t know if you should. You’re still in a weakened state.”
“Coming back from Hell does that to a guy,” Angel said unenthusiastically. “But I want to go. I’m strong enough to fight the average vamp.”
“Does that include me?” a new figure said, calmly walking straight through the front door. “It sodding well better not.”
Angel was on his feet immediately, hatred marking his features. Buffy stood her ground, unafraid. Having been invited into the mansion previously, this new person needed no invitation.
“Spike,” they said at the same time.
“Good observation,” Spike sarcastically replied, rolling his eyes and taking a drag of his cigarette. He flicked ash onto the floor with an exaggerated, dramatic gesture. “And what are you two poofs up to tonight?”
“What do you want, Spike? And say it fast, before I loose my patience and stake you.” Buffy had retrieved a stake from out of nowhere, and she was holding it tightly in her right hand.
Angel wasn’t one to wait, and he started making his way towards Spike. Buffy stopped him with an outstretched arm. Right now wasn’t the best time for Angel to be fighting one of the most vicious vampires in history.
“Look out, here comes the Giant Forehead!” Spike cried, feigning fear.
“Last time I ask, Spike: what do you want?” Buffy was already annoyed at the intrusion, plus the fact that Spike’s usual belligerent attitude grated on her nerves.
Spike gave a patronizing look. “Patience is a virtue, Slayer.” Buffy made a face, but Spike continued as if he didn’t notice. “I’ll get to the bloody point: I have something of yours.”
“You lie,” Angel snarled, wishing Buffy would let him fight.
“Do I?” Spike asked. “Funny thing happened to me last night. I bumped into a girl, real pretty, big eyes, you know the deal. I thought I’d have a snack, but guess what? She was a Slayer.”
“Faith,” Buffy immediately responded, her eyes narrowing. “What’ve you done with her?”
“Like I said, I have her stashed somewhere.” He blew some cigarette smoke into the air. “Somewhere real safe.”
“You probably just have her locked in the factory.”
Concealing his surprise, Spike quickly came up with a denial. “Well, hey, how thick do you think I am? Of course she’s not at the sodding factory.”
Angel and Buffy both gave him looks that said “you’re full of shit.”
“Okay, fine, she’s at the factory. Happy?” His plan hadn’t involved much more than that admission in the first place, so it made little difference. Spike flicked his cigarette towards the lovers, causing them to step aside. Time to go. “If you want her, come get her.” Using his supernatural speed, he was at the door before anyone could move. “And I want money,” he added as an afterthought. It couldn’t hurt if they actually did bring money, right? With that, he bolted out the door and was at his car in a matter of seconds.
Buffy and Angel stood unmoving as they listened to Spike’s car rush off into the night, presumably towards the factory on the outside of town.
“Let’s go,” Angel said, finally stepping around Buffy. He grabbed his coat and threw it on, intending to follow Spike.
“How do we even know he really has Faith?” Buffy said, standing still.
“Spike doesn’t make idle threats, Buffy.” Angel was waiting expectantly by the door, ready to kill Spike and be free of his intolerable presence forever. “We need to move fast.”
“Fine.”
Forgoing a jacket, Buffy tossed her stake to Angel and grabbed another from her purse. They broke into a run as soon as they got outside. At the pace they were moving, they would probably make the factory in a little over ten minutes.
Skidding to a halt in front of the factory, Spike turned off the car and stepped out. This was it, the night he’d dreamed about for over a century. He’d be rid of Angel, and if he was lucky, Faith would take care of Buffy. Full of adrenalin, ready for blood, he entered the factory and descended the stairs as the huge metal door clanked shut behind him.
“So what’s up?” Faith demanded, hopping down from the metal barrel she’d been sitting on.
“They’ll be here in about ten minutes, at least if they run as fast as I think they can. You ready?”
“Five by five.” She stretched her arms above her head, prepping her muscles for a fight. Her shirt and pants were dusty from long hours in the factory. “Let’s do this.”
“Look,” Spike said, moving within arm’s reach of Faith. “This is going to get bad. In the worst way. Whatever happens—”
“Oh, don’t get all mushy on me. It’s wicked embarrassing.” A tiny smile flitted across her lips. “I know how to deal with violence, how to give and receive it. Don’t worry about me.”
“I wasn’t worryin’, I was just…um…” He looked sheepish as he struggled to make up some excuse.
“It doesn’t matter,” Faith said, her face sincere in the gloom. “I know what you meant. Just come out of this still standing, and we’ll call it even, all right?”
“Deal.”
Without anymore words, both Slayer and vampire went their separate ways, as they had planned. Spike waited down below, where he would attract attention, while Faith climbed the stairs and took up a hiding spot right next to the door. The only lights in the entire place came from numerous candles that Faith had purchased when Spike was at Angel’s. Since both of them knew the factory backwards and forwards, they wouldn’t need much light to work their way around, but Buffy and Angel should be confused by the relative darkness. Faith’s eyes, while not as catlike as Spike’s, had long since become accustomed to the murkiness that pervaded nearly every inch of the factory. It would help her get an advantage over Buffy.
Muscles tensed, senses alert, she sat and waited.
The factory had barely become silent again before the metal door slammed open with inhuman force. In stepped Buffy and Angel, side by side, immediately focusing on where Spike was standing down below. Faith, slightly behind and to the right of Buffy, sat patiently and waited for the most opportune moment.
“How do you want to do this, Spike?” Buffy said, speaking quietly. However, her voice was amplified within the confines of the factory, and everyone heard her clearly.
“We should just stake him and be done with it,” Angel added, loud enough so that only Buffy and Faith could hear.
“Did you bring my money?” Spike said, barely visible within the twisting shadows that the candles were throwing in every direction. He was going to have fun with this situation while he still could. “I need a new radiator for my car.”
“What do think we are? Stupid?” This from Buffy, obviously barely in control of her temper.
Spike pretended to think about the question before answering. “Yes?” he asked in a completely innocent tone. Faith, still hiding, almost laughed out loud.
“Fine, this ends now,” Buffy said, moving with Angel towards the stairway.
Spike stood his ground, waiting for Faith to make her move, which came so fast that he wasn’t even sure he’d seen it, but he definitely saw the results. Stepping out behind Buffy, Faith had delivered a standing side kick, sending the blonde Slayer directly into Angel, who then fell straight down the stairs, clanking off the metal and sending echoes throughout the factory. Buffy managed to grab the railing to prevent herself from following Angel headlong down the stairwell, which was how things had been planned out from the start. Now Angel would be forced to face off with Spike alone, leaving Buffy for Faith. The two groups moved instantly into action, and the silence that permeated the factory was shattered.
As she saw Spike leap on top of Angel, Faith backpedaled slightly and waited for Buffy to make the first move. This was going to be interesting.
“Faith, what the hell is going on?” Buffy demanded, coming to her feet. She risked a glance at Angel and Spike, but there didn’t seem to be anything she could do about that situation right now. “Don’t even tell me—”
“Yeah, B, I’m with Spike now,” Faith interrupted, unwilling to let Buffy finish her sentence. “Deal with it.”
Advancing a small distance, Buffy couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “How could you do this to me, after everything I’ve done for you?”
Faith gave a short laugh. “What exactly have you done for me, B?” Buffy started to speak, but Faith cut her off. “Don’t give me some crap about trying to be my friend. We both know that’s bullshit.”
“I tried to help you.”
“I didn’t ask for your fucking help!” Faith yelled, almost losing control. “What, you don’t think I saw the looks your friends gave me? That I didn’t know about everything I was never included in? Is that what a friend does? Is it?”
As the conversation plunged onward, sounds from the fight below emanated upward. Crashing bodies against metal, cries of pain.
“You can’t accuse me of not trying,” Buffy stated, not moving an inch.
“No, you’re right,” Faith sneered, hating the other Slayer more than she ever had before. “You tried once or twice. But you were always so wrapped up in your own shit that you never gave a second thought about me. Angel was more important, your little Scooby gang was more important, everything was more important than me. I came last. An afterthought. After everything had been said and done, that’s when you came around for me. So yeah, I guess you tried.” Faith’s eyes, blackened by rage and candlelight, were moist. “But you know what? Fuck you, B. In a single day, Spike’s done more for me than you have in months. Because while you might have tried…you never cared.”
With that final statement of pain, Faith leaped forward, intending to rip Buffy to pieces. Put on the defensive, Buffy had no choice but to retreat while she blocked Faith’s punches. She was dimly aware of the fact that she was in danger of falling down the stairs, so she pushed Faith back for an instant and used that time to back flip onto the nearest catwalk, landing safely on her feet. Faith, heedless of the fifteen foot drop that awaited her if she mistimed her jump, vaulted over the rusted handrail and landed mere feet away from Buffy. The decrepit catwalk shook under the combined weight, in danger of coming loose of its hinges and sending both Slayers straight to the floor below, where the other fight was raging onward.
Spike had wasted no words when Angel had fallen down the stairs, letting his actions speak for themselves. Leaping onto Angel’s back, he delivered several solid punches to the lower back area before being thrown off. Tossing his coat aside, Angel reared up as his face changed from human to vampire. Changing to his true form in the same instant, Spike threw his coat at Angel’s face, distracting him for a millisecond, which was all Spike needed. Bolting forward in the darkness with vampiric speed, Spike jumped up and gave a vicious roundhouse kick to the side of Angel’s head. He felt the solidity of his foot connecting with bone, and Angel’s head snapped sideways, sending droplets of blood onto the floor. Snarling, Angel quickly recovered and grabbed Spike before he could land a follow-up blow. Forcing him backward and into a pile of steel pipes, Angel landed an uppercut that almost cracked Spike’s teeth and then dropped him roughly down to the concrete, getting in a kick to the ribs before Spike rolled out the way.
Spitting some blood, Spike picked up one of the pipes as he rolled further into the darkness. He jabbed the pipe straight out towards Angel’s face, intending to impale him through the head, but he missed by a few inches as Angel ducked down and snatched up a pipe of his own, immediately countering Spike’s attack with a wide swing. Bringing down his pipe in a defensive posture, Spike blocked Angel’s attack as a small shower of sparks ricocheted into the darkness, momentarily illuminating the scene. He caught a flash of Faith and Buffy grappling with each other up above, then his attention was forced back to Angel and the pipe that was swinging out of the darkness.
Stepping in close and lessening the impact of the hit, Spike absorbed the shock on his left arm and rammed his own weapon into Angel’s stomach, doubling him over. A knee to the face, connecting with an audible snap, sent Angel sprawling backward to the ground. Spike threw his pipe into the darkness and jumped onto Angel, grabbing his dark hair with one hand and savagely punching his face with the other. As the candles flicked all around, Spike distantly heard the sounds of boots stepping on metal up above, but he was too busy basking in the warm feeling of Angel’s blood on his hands to pay much attention.
On the shuddering catwalk directly above, Buffy had just finished flipping Faith over her shoulder and onto the unforgiving metal. She landed with a grimace, screwing her eyes shut even as she somersaulted away, trying to put some distance between herself and Buffy. The blonde Slayer pressed her advantage, kicking Faith squarely between the shoulders as she rolled away. Feigning serious injury, Faith lashed out with her right foot as Buffy approached, tripping the blonde and sending her back-first onto the clanking metal catwalk. Bleeding from numerous cuts where the metal had ripped into her skin, Faith focused on the pain and used its energy to get back to her feet as Buffy did the same.
A quick standoff ensued, each Slayer trying to clear her vision and decide on a plan of attack. Faith, wiping her bloodied arms on her shirt, noticed that Buffy was in similar shape, blood streaming down her arms from the metal’s vicious kiss. Suddenly charging forward, Faith took Buffy by surprise and used that split second to her advantage, kicking Buffy’s right knee. Even though it didn’t break, Buffy cried out in pain and went down to the catwalk once more, unable to support her own weight. Approaching like the darkness itself, Faith got down on her own knees and wrapped her hands around Buffy’s throat, intending to make her pay for anything and everything. As she squeezed harder and harder, she lost herself in the moment and didn’t see Buffy’s fist.
Stars exploded behind Faith’s eyes as she was punched directly in the temple. She rolled off of Buffy, who took only a moment to catch her breath before reversing the situation, roughly grabbing Faith’s hair and slamming her head into the catwalk. It made a sickening, dull thud, but Faith began struggling against Buffy’s grasp only seconds later. However, she was unable to gain enough leverage to raise herself, and she suffered another strike to the head as Buffy once more slammed her face-first into the metal grating. Dark blood trickled down Faith’s face as she used every ounce of strength left to twist Buffy away, finally succeeding and crawling away across the catwalk. Limping heavily, Buffy gave chase, intending to end the fight once and for all. She spared a concerned look downward, searching for Angel, but she couldn’t see him or Spike anywhere. All she heard were shouts, snarls, and clashing metal somewhere deeper within the factory.
Granted a momentary reprieve, Faith crawled farther into the darkness of the catwalk, hoping to clear her spinning head while Buffy was otherwise occupied. The metal, hard on her fingers and knees, was insignificant next to the pain throbbing in her skull. She realized that she probably had a concussion from the sheer trauma of having her face slammed into the catwalk, but she couldn’t give up now. She had seen the look in Buffy’s eyes, a look that spoke of a desire to end the fight at all costs, even Faith’s death. And Faith had no doubt that Buffy was capable of it, no matter how often the blonde had claimed that murder was too far beneath her lofty conscience. Tasting her own blood in her mouth, Faith felt the vibrations of Buffy’s approaching footsteps just in time to stand up and block a roundhouse kick. Grabbing Buffy’s foot, seeing her shock and confusion, Faith pulled her enemy forward and struck a massive clothesline to Buffy’s throat.
A half-gasp, half-cough escaped Buffy’s lips as her neck was struck, but she somehow managed to stay on her feet. Undeterred, Faith rammed her elbow into Buffy’s face, producing a small shower of blood and forcing Buffy up against the railing. Flickering darkness lay far below, a nightmare of twisted metal and unforgiving concrete. Barely able to block Faith’s following punch, Buffy had nowhere to go, and Faith knew it. As she hit Buffy squarely in the face with a backhanded strike, sending the blonde over the railing, a small part of Faith’s mind wondered how Spike was faring.
But then her sole focus was once more on Buffy, who was now dangling by a single-handed grip on the catwalk. Faith could hear the ragged breathing coming from Buffy’s injured throat; blood was dripping from her nose down into the gloom below. Wiping her own blood out of her eyes, feeling faint, Faith knelt down close to the person she hated most in the world.
“How does it feel, B?” she spat, contempt almost dripping from her words. “How does it feel to be vulnerable? To feel only pain and nothing else?”
Buffy, grimacing, was trying to maintain her grip on the catwalk. “You’re a piece of shit, Faith.” Her eyes widened slightly as the brown-haired Slayer immediately stood up.
“Maybe I am,” Faith said, without any hint of sarcasm. “Does it make you feel better to say so? Makes you feel justified, doesn’t it? It doesn’t matter what you call me, B. I’ve heard it all before, more times than you can possibly imagine.” She paused for a half-second, letting that information sink in. “Because what I am today, and what I always will be, is just one more sad song.”
With that, Faith raised her right foot and drove her heel into Buffy’s hand, producing a snapping sound as fingers were crushed between metal and Slayer strength. Buffy cried out in pain and dropped straight down to the concrete below as Faith smiled wickedly. Unable to land properly because of her injured knee, Buffy collided with the ground in a crumpled heap as pain shot through her entire body, and she didn’t move as her blood slowly began to pool around her.
Faith knew that she wasn’t dead. Not even close. But there was still plenty of time for that.
Meanwhile, through a few access ways, the two vampires were still mercilessly beating upon each other. Somehow, Spike had lost his early advantage and had been forced into an area with a large conveyer belt, even though he had tried his best to keep the fight in an area where he could check on Faith’s status. But, like most fights, things had quickly gotten out of control, and the battle had literally bounced from wall to wall until it had ended up here. A complete absence of light greeted the combatants when they stumbled into the conveyor room, but both were equipped with eyesight that allowed them to clearly make out their surroundings.
Spike, his t-shirt in bloody tatters, was on the defensive, minimizing Angel’s attacks while slowly moving backwards towards the conveyor. All semblance of strategy had left this fight long ago, and both vampires were bleeding heavily, Spike mostly from his chest—where Angel had managed to stab him with a rusted piece of metal—and Angel from his face. Enraged that Spike was still managing to hold his own despite being much younger, Angel leaped forward and barely missed a savage spinning kick that would’ve sent Spike to the floor, but instead, Spike ducked under the kick and used Angel’s own momentum to his advantage. Putting all his strength into the attack, Spike punched Angel directly in the spine as he came down from his botched kick. Recoiling in pain and rage, Angel managed to roll away, clutching his back.
“What’s the problem, mate?” Spike asked, amused, tearing off the remnants of his shirt and displaying his bloodied torso. “Is that all you’ve got?”
“This is the night you die,” Angel retorted, standing up once more. “Have fun while it lasts.”
“Oh, I intend to, you wanker.”
Just then, they both heard a scream come from the room where the fights had begun, and then a muffled thump as something hit the floor. Spike didn’t recognize the voice as Faith’s, and he smirked at Angel in the darkness, feeling that the fight was already over. But Angel, hearing Buffy’s cry, suddenly rushed Spike’s position, punching and kicking like he hadn’t been beaten nearly to a pulp already. Attempting to block all of the lightning-fast maneuvers was impossible, and Spike soon found himself in constant pain as Angel connected again and again. Finally, falling for one of Angel’s feints, Spike received a kick to the side of the head and went to his knees momentarily. He was up again almost instantly, but Angel had already used that time to run back towards Buffy.
Feeling no pain, only a desire to stop Angel before he was able to get to Faith, Spike took off after his adversary, sprinting hard with hate and desire. He was catching up quickly, but he realized that Angel had too great of a head start.
He wasn’t going to make it in time.
Bolting through a door and reemerging into the ambience of the factory’s candlelit entrance, Spike saw Angel, with a long steel pipe in his hands, running straight for Faith, who was standing over the crumpled form of Buffy. With her back turned and her attention on Buffy, she would never have enough time to block the blow.
“Faith!” Spike shouted, not slowing down, his face changing back to its human form.
As if suddenly noticing that things weren’t right, Faith turned halfway around and tried to bring her arms up, but Angel was too fast, swinging the heavy pipe with all of his supernatural strength. Spike heard something snap as the pipe hit Faith directly in the ribs, and she fell to the ground with a cry of pain, immediately curling up into a fetal position and laying still.
Enraged, Spike caught Angel before he could hit Faith again, tackling him to the ground. The pipe clanked off into the distance. Pulling Angel up by sheer force of will, Spike threw him as hard as he could and was satisfied to see Angel fly at least ten feet and land heavily by Buffy, who was still not moving.
Unconcerned about Angel being a further problem, Spike quickly went to Faith’s side, hoping that she hadn’t been injured too seriously. Angel, seeing that no one present was going to benefit from further violence, gingerly picked Buffy off the floor and carried her slowly up the stairs and into the night, leaving a trail of crimson blood. Kneeling down close to Faith, Spike could tell that she wasn’t in very good shape. Her eyes were shut tight and she was struggling to breathe.
“Faith?” Spike quietly asked, not wanting to touch her lest he accidentally injure her more. She was making a low moaning sound as she lay in her fetal position on the cold concrete. She was covered in blood from wounds she’d sustained on her face and arms, not to mention the huge gash that Angel’s final strike had created. “Faith?”
Attempting to open her eyes and speak, Faith coughed up a bit of blood as she struggled to stay conscious. Spike gently wiped it away from her mouth, unsure of what more he could do to help.
After a few minutes, Faith finally managed to open her eyes. The first thing they focused on was Spike, and she actually gave the tiniest of smiles before frowning in pain once more. Eventually she got a few words out around the fire that was streaking through her body.
“My…rib,” she said falteringly, unable to make herself speak normally. “Broken.”
“Shit. Hospital?”
Slipping back into intense pain, Faith barely managed to nod slightly, indicating that she needed some serious medical attention.
“All right, love,” Spike said, putting his arms under her. “This is gonna hurt a bit.” He picked Faith up as easily as he could, but she still let out a pained whimper. “Almost there,” Spike told her, climbing the stairs. But Faith had fallen unconscious, her body and mind overexerted and overloaded.
Spike carried Faith outside and placed her lovingly into the passenger seat. Headless of his own injuries, Spike then ran to the other side of the car, got in, and started it up. Sunrise wouldn’t be for a few hours yet, thankfully. He gunned the engine and drove away, holding Faith with his right hand as he steered with his left.
The factory door, glinting dully under the moonlight, swayed idly in the warm night breeze.
The next morning, Spike was asleep in a shady corner of the hospital room that Faith had been assigned to. Luckily, he had managed to grab a spare shirt last night before he’d taken her inside. The doctors would’ve wanted to examine him, and doctors tended to go a little daft when their patient was bleeding profusely but had no pulse, after all. With the morning sun peaking through the closed blinds of the room, he was curled up on a rather uncomfortable chair, but he had been so exhausted that he’d fallen asleep anyway. Staying up until a few minutes before sunrise to make sure that Faith was going to pull through the night without anymore trauma, Spike had finally allowed himself some time to rest and heal. His own wounds, especially the ones left from where Angel had stabbed him, were still sore, but medical attention was not something he needed, not being human. He could not die from such simple, blunt attacks, but Faith certainly could, if given enough of them.
But she had pulled through the night, fluttering in and out of consciousness the entire time. Her willpower was a testament to her character, and Spike knew he had been lucky in finding such a strong, loyal friend. As the minutes crept silently by, activity outside the closed door to the room that Faith had been assigned to was picking up. Doctors and nurses, striding to and fro, went about their own duties, completely unaware of the vampire and his Slayer. Eventually, sometime around eleven in the morning, Faith finally opened her eyes a bit.
Confronted with the overwhelming whiteness of the room, she immediately shut them again, but soon opened them once more, taking in her new surroundings as she feebly struggled to sit up. There was Spike, looking uncomfortable on a chair…white walls…where was she? After a few moments of confused silence and an accompanying frown, the memories washed over her, and she remembered the events that had led her here. She remembered fighting with Buffy, pushing her over a railing…the last thing she recalled was standing triumphantly over Buffy, and then the rest of the night was a blur of pain and blood.
Aggravated, she tried to swing her legs over the side of the bed, but a needlelike pain suddenly jolted up her side, causing her to involuntarily cry out. She immediately lay back down, holding her side. The commotion had apparently woken Spike, because he moved slightly and nearly fell out of his precarious position on the chair.
“Bloody hell!” he said, leaving the chair in disgust and standing up. His black pants, bloodied and dusty from the night before, were unchanged, but he sported a relatively clean shirt. Before he could get out another word, he noticed Faith, eyes shut, squirming in pain. Knowing there was nothing he could do, he retrieved his chair and brought it to Faith’s side, where he sat down and waited for her pain to subside, which it did after nearly a minute.
Reentering reality, Faith gazed about the room again. Spike had somehow moved closer, for there he was, his blue eyes staring straight into hers.
“Staring problem?” she playfully asked, trying and barely succeeding in flashing a tiny smile. She knew that whatever had happened last night, the reason she wasn’t in a coma—or dead—was most likely due to some action on Spike’s part, and she was eternally grateful for that. No one had ever cared for her that much before, and it was an experience she cherished.
Spike smiled back, but concern shone in his eyes. “No, jus’ taking stock of your wounds—how you feelin’?”
Momentarily silent as she once more surveyed the room with her large brown eyes, Faith realized that she didn’t like hospitals very much. The horrid whiteness of the walls, the smell, not to mention the fact that she appeared to be linked to several machines and intravenous contraptions, did not make her feel very welcome. She was also being smothered under at least three blankets for some reason.
“Like a hostage,” she said, moving her right arm up until it began to drag a moveable IV stand closer. She would’ve laughed, but she knew that she would regret it if the earlier pain in her side was any indication. And there was a strange ringing in her head, like a tiny, insistent alarm that wouldn’t go away.
“Fair enough,” Spike replied. Faith saw that his hair was completely disheveled, so unlike the carefully groomed state that she last remembered. “Just featured you’d still be sore.”
Faith tried a deep breath, was rewarded with another sliver of pain, and quickly let the breath back out. “I’m good,” she lied, with a completely straight face. She knew that she must’ve been a complete, bloody mess when she’d been brought here last night. “Better than when you dragged me in here, and apparently still breathin’, so can’t really complain.”
Spike scooted his chair a bit closer. Seeing the cuts on his face, Faith was going to ask a question as to how well he felt, but he beat her to it.
“You were tossing about all night,” he said quietly, concern written all over his face. Her constant unconsciousness had been frequently interrupted by moments when she had snapped awake, causing herself immense pain despite all the drugs she had been fed through the IV. Even though he knew that she hadn’t slept well at all, he felt inclined to ask anyway. “You sleep okay?”
Feeling tired, Faith shook her head a little, her brown hair tumbling over her shoulders.
“Not really,” she said. “Pain’s kinda an intrusion on the whole sleep concept. What’s with you and the twenty questions anyway?
“Worried about you, is all.”
“You don’t look so hot yourself, you know.”
Spike glanced down at himself for a moment. “I’ll pull through. It’ll take more than a few sodding stab wounds to keep me down.”
“Stabbed?” Faith responded, her eyes widening.
“Yeah, Mr. Forehead is a pretty mean fighter when you piss him off enough.” Spike laughed, remembering how the fight had gone down. “He stabbed me with a piece of metal, but hey, it was only fair considering that I beat his face for about a minute straight with my fists.”
“You’re okay, though?” Faith couldn’t keep herself from sounding skeptical.
“I’ll be fine. I’m just glad you’re gonna make it.”
A flicker of confusion passed through Faith’s features, but it was quickly gone. “What…what happened to me?” she asked innocently, unaware of her own injuries.
“You want the short version or the long version?” Spike replied, getting ready to do a list on his fingers. “Two broken ribs, mild concussion, bruises all over the bloody place, and you came away with some attractive cuts on your face and arms. Not too bad for a night’s work, eh?”
Faith absentmindedly ran her fingers over her face as she considered this news, feeling the tiny cuts. But they were already beginning to heal, and would be completely gone within a few days, judging from how fast she had recovered from similar injuries in the past. But the ribs were a different story; even with her Slayer healing abilities, she wouldn’t be able to move much or defend herself if Angel or Buffy came looking for revenge. She looked up at Spike.
Sounding very much like a lost little girl, she asked, “W-will take care of me?”
Heart almost breaking upon hearing the fear in Faith’s voice, Spike leaned in and kissed her forehead tenderly. “You know I will, love,” he said.
Gratitude literally radiated from Faith as she gave a weak smile. “Thank you.”
Gently taking Faith’s small hand in his own, Spike gave a similar smile, not needing to say anything else.
They sat that way for a long time.
FIN