Disclaimer: If I had a buck for every time I had to say that I really, really, really don't own this, I might have enough money to get tickets to the BYU football game this weekend.

Angel couldn't wait to get out of Sunnydale, to leave all the heartache and longing and regret behind. But he had one last thing to do before he left.

He didn't want to say goodbye to Buffy again, didn't think he could physically stand it. Thankfully, he knew this place was safe. Buffy wouldn't be there, and neither would any of her friends. Not for a long time, anyway.

Sighing, Angel hefted his duffle bag over one shoulder and strode through the nearly empty parking lot to the brightly lit hospital entrance. He walked up to the nurses' station, trying to appear as normal and human as possible.

"How can I help you, sweetie?" asked the nurse in charge. She was temporarily blinded by the brilliant smile the tall, dark, and handsome young man flashed her.

"I'm here to see my sister. I 'm not sure if you have her name. My dad told me she was brought in last night. She's thin, a brunette . . . Dad says she's in a coma." Angel let his voice break, hoping she would take the bait.

The large, matronly woman fell for it hook, line, and sinker. "Oh, honey, I am so sorry. Your sister's in room 27. She hasn't woken up yet. The doctors say she never may." The nurse's voice dripped concern. "You're a saint to come and see her."

Angel smiled weakly. He was anything but a saint, especially where the girl in the coma was concerned. "So . . . can I go back and see her now?"

"Oh, of course, dear. I just need you to sign some things." She handed him a small stack of paperwork. "Initial every other page. What did you say your sister's name was again?"

"Faith." The vampire searched desperately in his head for a last name. Hadn't Giles said it once? "Faith Lehane." He gave the papers back to the nurse. "Room 27? Thanks."

He only got lost once before finding room 27. It was a dismal place, dirty off-white walls and smelling of a generic cleaner that made Angel's nostrils burn. A few beat-up plastic chairs were set against the wall, and on the bed in the middle of the room lay a girl. She was hooked up to several different machines and monitors. Pale and wan, with great dark circles under her eyes, she looked like she'd been through the ringer – which she had. Being stabbed in the belly and then falling several stories into the back of a truck was no mean feat, even for a Slayer. Angel could still smell the dried blood on her.

"Faith."

She didn't answer. Of course not. It had been a stupid idea. To say her name and expect her to wake up. Suddenly a terrible urge to bend down and kiss her seized him, perhaps born of post-saving-the-world euphoria. Angel shook it off. This wasn't a fairytale. Sleeping Beauty wasn't a professional killer, and Prince Charming didn't moonlight as a bloodthirsty vampire. If he kissed Faith, she wouldn't wake up. It wasn't that simple.

Angel gazed down at the girl on the bed. He should have brought flowers. Something, anything, to lighten this dreary room and make it look like someone cared. That had always been the trouble, he realized, setting his bag down on one of the cracked chairs. No one had ever cared, no one but the Mayor, and now they were all paying the price for it.

"I'm sorry." She couldn't hear him, but Angel had to say it anyway. "Oh, Faith, I'm so sorry." Angel dropped into one of the empty chairs. He moved it closer to the bed, then reached out and took one of the girl's cold white hands in his. There was dirt and grime and more dried blood underneath the heavily painted nails. "This is all my fault."

That was an overstatement – even he knew that – but it had its kernel of truth nonetheless. If he had never gone evil, if Dru had never killed that Kendra girl, if he hadn't been so preoccupied with Buffy and his time in the hell dimension, if someone had noticed Faith's isolation and loneliness and truly been her friend, if he'd been more alert and never let Wesley take her, if only he could have kept from hurting and alienating her even more with the Angelus ploy.

The vampire forced his brain to still. He couldn't handle this right now; he already felt torn in two. Dwelling on if-onlys and what-might-have-beens would just drive him mad.

"I'm sorry I didn't see you," Angel spoke softly. His thumb was busy tracing circles on the back of Faith's hand. "I'm sorry I didn't help you. I'm sorry I wasn't fast enough to catch that blasted arrow. I'm sorry that Buffy nearly killed you. Want to know a secret?" Angel leaned in closer to whisper in the unconscious girl's ear. "I don't think I could have drained you. I would have stopped, I promise. I wouldn't have let you die." He sat back. "And now here you are, dying anyway. Nothing I can do about it."

Angel sighed and sat in silence for a while, brooding. Ultimately, Faith's own actions had brought her to this, but she'd had plenty of help along the way. The second Slayer had been full of life, almost painfully so, but now she lay cold and still. More like Snow White than Sleeping Beauty – if Snow White wore smoky eyeliner and dressed like the Huntsman's ex-girlfriend. Various fruit/garden analogies came unbidden to the vampire's mind, and once again he stifled the impulse to get up and kiss her. It wouldn't solve anything.

While he was thinking, someone knocked on the door, and the motherly nurse from the front desk entered. She looked awkward and slightly embarrassed.

"Visiting hours are over, Mr., uh, Lehane."

"What?"

"Visiting hours end at 9 p.m. Sharp," she said primly.

"I'm leaving tomorrow," pled Angel quietly. "Going overseas. I don't know when I'll be back – if ever. Could I stay with her for just a little longer?" He squeezed Faith's hand tighter and glanced into her face as he said this, knowing it would tug on the nurse's heartstrings.

Flustered, the woman stammered something about checking with the doctor and left.

Once the door had shut behind her, Angel chuckled softly. "Alone again. I wish you would wake up. Even if it meant you'd be breaking the leg off the table and going for my heart. Or maybe you'd go straight for the decapitation . . . that could be interesting." He ran out of words again.

Ugh, this was so awkward. Angel had never visited anyone at the hospital, let alone someone like Faith, who he'd really only talked to three times – and all of those were after she'd killed the deputy mayor. Part of him wanted badly to leave, to just drop her hand and take off, but for some reason he couldn't do it.

Leaving Buffy was bad enough. He wasn't sure if he could ever put his heart back together again. In the end, though, he knew Buffy had her friends and her Watcher and her mom. Eventually she'd recover and be happy again – maybe even have lots of mini-Buffys someday. But Faith had no one. The Scoobies weren't going to come visit their embarrassment/enemy. From what he'd heard, her old Watcher was dead, and she hadn't seen her mother in years.

"D-mn. Why didn't I bring flowers?" the vampire asked himself in frustration. "G-d knows how long it'll be till someone else comes by to see you," he added by way of explanation, looking earnestly into Faith's blank face. "Wish I could get inside that head." Angel brushed a lank lock of hair out of the brunette's closed eyes. "Wish I could talk to you, wish you could hear me. I have to go soon. Got to be in L.A. before dawn. Don't know where I'll end up. I don't plan on coming back. I wish I could stay, for you and for Buffy. But I can't."

Just then the nurse returned. "The doctor says you can stay." Her tone was suddenly crisp and business-like. "Although I don't know what you plan on doing. Your sister's in a coma. She can't really hear you."

Angel pulled a beat-up green paperback out of his duffle. "That's all right," he told her pleasantly, calm and collected once again. "I thought I'd read to her."

The nurse backed out, her expression disapproving. Angel rather fancied she'd figured out that Faith wasn't his sister.

"She probably thinks I'm your abusive boyfriend or something," he confided to Faith. Taking her hand again, he unconsciously began to trace random patterns on it. "I guess I'd better read to you then – it's better than this endless talking about my feelings. I'm supposed to be taciturn, you know."

The vampire opened his book and cleared his throat. "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell," he paused to reflect on some of the holes and oozy smells he'd known, "nor yet a dry, sandy, bare hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit hole, and that means comfort."

Angel read quickly and expressively; he had 300 pages to get through. In the off chance Faith could hear him, however, he wanted to do this thing right. Finally the last page was read, and the book was shut, and at last it was time to go.

Reluctantly, Angel stood and slung his bag over one shoulder. He rearranged Faith's hands and fixed her hair so she looked peaceful. Temptation struck once again, this time too powerful to be ignored.

"Faith, wake up," Angel whispered, and stooping down, he kissed the girl on the lips.

Nothing happened. He hadn't expected it to work, but the vampire couldn't help feeling disappointed anyway. Angel turned to leave, suddenly even more bitter than when he'd arrived, if that were possible. He should have known. Still, Angel spared one last glance over his shoulder at the girl in the hospital bed. Then, shaking his head, he walked away. Faith was no princess, and he wasn't her prince. Their lives weren't a fairytale, and nothing would ever change that.

Fin

A/N: Review?