Disclaimer: AiH owns naught. Naught, naught, naught. Sad day.
"Rise and shine, Slayerhead." Spike shut the bedroom door with a loud snap. The vampire stalked across the dark floor, a steaming mug in his hand. "It's just me. You can drop the coma act." He turned on the floor lamp and sat on the bed next to the injured young woman.
"But I'm so good at it." Faith opened one eye. "What, no hyperactive Girl Scouts all too willing to follow big sister Faith into a firetrap and die? Or did you decide it was more fun to gloat alone?"
Spike didn't take the bait. "Andrew wanted me to give you this." He waved the mug in front of her nose. "Boy's too afraid of you to bring it himself." The Slayer quickly pushed herself into a sitting position and took the steaming mug. "Besides," Spike added, stretching. "I need a break from all the Chicken Little-ing going on out there."
Staring at her chicken noodle soup, willing it to cool down, Faith snorted. "Don't blame you." She decided to risk it and sipped deeply from the mug. "Ohh. That's good. Tell Andrew thanks for me?"
"And ruin your tough-girl image? Your funeral." With a shrug, the vampire pulled a cigarette out of his jacket pocket and ignited it.
Faith stared at the cig enviously.
"Forget it, pet," Spike said firmly. "Way I heard it, you're lucky to be alive. No smokes for you until Dr. Willow says otherwise."
The Slayer sighed and returned to her soup. Spike looked around the room. A small glass vase with a handful of brightly colored wildflowers sat on the bedside table. Probably Willow's idea. Something to brighten the sickroom and cheer Faith up. Spike sniggered softly. Faith wasn't exactly a flower person.
Noticing a folded piece of heavy paper beneath the vase, he waited for Faith to be sufficiently distracted by her dinner, then slid the paper out from under the flowers. He unfolded it to see a charcoal sketch in a style he knew well. Unlike the majority of the other sketches he'd seen, however, this one's subject wasn't sleeping or dead. It was a drawing of Faith standing in some kind of warehouse, her hair loose and wavy around her shoulders, her eyes wary and attentive, her body braced in a fighting stance. A familiar hand had written one word at the bottom of the sketch in thin black ink: "Redemption". Spike dropped the drawing onto the bedcovers, his eyes narrowed in suspicion. He sniffed the air once, twice, then whirled on Faith.
"Angel's been here." It wasn't a question.
Faith slurped her last noodle and set the mug in her lap. "So?"
"He saw Buffy first, you know. Probably picked those flowers on the way back from seeing her."
"So?" Faith repeated coolly.
"So did he say hello to you with his tongue, too?"
Some girls might have needed a moment to get that statement. Not Faith. She raised one eyebrow. "No, I can't say he did. You jealous?"
"How could I not be?" Spike demanded, his voice full of bitterness. "I do everything for her – I get my bloody soul for her. I stay here and protect the Nibblet and let her rip my heart into a thousand tiny pieces over and over and over again. What does he do? He left her all broken four years ago. And now he shows up with some fancy magical amulet or sommat, and she just takes him back like nothing ever happened."
"It's Buffy and Angel, princess. What did you expect?" The Slayer tried unsuccessfully to steal his cigarette. "They're always going to pick each other first."
Spike pushed her away without any real force. As he did so, her mane of dark hair fell forward, baring her neck. The blond vampire found himself looking at it out of old habit. He saw two identical half-healed puncture wounds, each one a pale, angry red. Spike reached out a hand to touch the bite gently. Faith jerked away.
"Who got you, pet?" he wondered.
Her answer came with extreme reluctance. "Angel."
The vampire instantly switched to his game face. "Whoa! He's just been bitin' all the Slayers around here, hasn't he? Care to flip over and let me make it all symmetrical for you? Or are you a one-vamp girl? In case you haven't noticed, Faithy, Angel tends to prefer blondes."
"Screw you. It wasn't like that."
"Oh, yeah?" Spike's face morphed back to normal, but he was still seething. "Prove it." He blew a stream of cigarette smoke right in her face.
Faith inhaled the smoke and blew it right back out. "Want a story, Fang-boy? I'll give you a story." She told him tersely what she and Wesley had done, how Angelus had come to bite her, and what had happened after. The whole time she was talking she never once looked at Spike. Faith wasn't proud of what she'd done. She'd done it because it was necessary – and she'd do it again, if she had to. But she didn't much like talking about it.
When she'd finished, Spike's face softened slightly. "So you shot up on a mystical drug and let Angelus bite you? All so you could bring the bloody b%$%#& in alive? You're stupid, love. Brave, but stupid."
"I know I'm not the smart Slayer, never have been." Faith met his eyes, her chin set determinedly. "But I couldn't let Angel down. Not when he's the only one who's never given up on me – or died," she added as an afterthought. "He saved me. I had to save him."
"And yet he still chose Buffy. All you did, and he still chose Buffy." Spike watched her closely. He needed someone else to hurt as much as he did. With a little pushing, he felt he could get Faith bleeding on the inside. "'They're always going to pick each other first,'" he mocked her earlier words. "Know what that means, Faith? It means he's always going to choose Buffy over you, and there's nothing you can do about it."
"He did choose me once." It was almost a whisper. More confidently, Faith went on, "He did. Buffy came to L.A. to get revenge – to be honest, she kinda deserved it – but Angel said no. He wouldn't let her. He stood between us, protecting me. He took my side."
Spike tilted his head, curious. He had never heard this part of the story before. "Buffy never told me that."
"Yeah, well, she wouldn't, would she? Wouldn't want to tell the big bad vampire that her ex-lover took the part of her murderous, treacherous, body-switching enemy."
"Eh, maybe you're right." He paused, listening to something too quiet for her human ears to hear. "Buffy's comin' up the walk."
"You'd better go. She doesn't want you talking to me."
The vampire nodded and picked her empty soup mug up off the bed. Returning Angel's picture to the nightstand, he wondered sarcastically, "You think it's because she doesn't want you corrupting my shiny new soul? Or is it that she doesn't think you need any encouragement?"
"Probably both…" Faith's voice trailed away as Spike hit the light switch and hopped off the bed. "So, yeah, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, they'll pick each other. But that still leaves one time when she'll choose you. Who knows? Maybe your time's coming up."
Spike flashed the Slayer a brilliant grin. He knew what she was up to – and he appreciated it. "Thanks, love. Maybe your time'll come up again soon."
Faith smiled back, her eyes wistful as she glanced at the flowers on her nightstand. "Oh, I think it already has."
Fin.
A/N: I always thought it was kinda rough that Angel blew through town just to deliver the amulet to Buffy. This is the way I'd have liked for it to happen. Review?