Disclaimer: I don't feel the need to continue disclaiming these characters for the next however many chapters there will be, since I already did for the last two chapters, but oh well. So. In case it wasn't made clear beforehand, I definitely do not own these characters. And yes, there will be more, in case some of you think this is the end.
Thanks for the reviews. More are appreciated.
I open the door to find a completely unconscious Faith, in the same clothes since I last saw her. I'm assuming she never really made it past closing the door behind her after our conversation. It didn't look like there was a wound, so where was the blood coming from?
"What in the world is going on?" Giles looks disheveled, and less than himself. I see Willow and Kennedy poke out from behind their door.
"I don't know. But Faith is hurt and we need to get her medical attention. Now!" I'm trying to lift her up, and suddenly I feel someone near me.
"There's an infirmary in the building downstairs. I'll take her. Just get Willow, and hurry!" Angel sweeps her up like she's made of cloth. He's rushing. I have no time to feel jealous. I gather Willow, who didn't bother changing out of her pajamas, and get Andrew to start cleaning up the blood. He made a face at me, but he knew I wasn't joking.
"What's going on?"
"Is Faith gonna be okay?"
"How could this have happened?"
"How bad is it?"
Voices, voices, all around. I block them out and try to stay focused. It's rather difficult, however, when a crowd of people is surrounding a cot where your closest enemy is lying, bleeding away to nothing. Just saying.
There was no visible wound from outside the clothing, so Angel ripped open her shirt, revealing the answer. And some major cleavage. It's kind of hard for me to look away, and I can tell most of the others feel the same way. Same sex or not, Faith has always had a nice body.
It was some wooden shaft that had still been stuck inside, although her skin must've healed over it just a day before. But it was pierced through her lungs, and with every breath she'd taken, it shifted. Now it was resting its splinters inside her heart, and the enchanted side of it (oh yes, more magic) had been burning through the bodily material around it, including the flesh, and I could smell it. It explained the excessive amount of blood. I feel a slight twinge of fear.
"She's been lying there for hours, is she gonna make it?" I look to Willow, who, with the help of Fred, was hopefully conjuring up a cure.
"I don't know, Buffy. I haven't ever seen a wound like this, or even a weapon. I'm just making basic healing potions. I suggest somebody performs an operation. We need to get that thing out quick. It's burning through her body like...like..."
"Like hellfire." Says Xander, as we listen to the almost inaudible hissing sound of flesh. Jesus. I'm hearing fear in everybody's voice. And worse, I'm hearing uncertainty.
Angel returns from making a call to a doctor friend he knows, and doesn't hesitate to pull up a chair near the bed and takes hold of her hand. His face is full of concern.
I hate it.
Wesley is pacing back and forth, clenching and unclenching his fists with anger.
I hate it.
Kennedy walks over and strokes that beautiful dark hair lightly, murmuring little nothings into her ear.
I hate it.
I see the way Connor looks at her still face. I remember the way his eyes lit up when she walked in the room the other day.
I hate it.
Even Willow brushes strands of hair from the still face and looks worried.
God. I hate it.
And I'm just standing here, at the edge of the bed doing nothing. Just staring at her face, her breasts, her wound, and back to her breasts, then to her face again.
So still, so calm. We were yelling at each other not even a day ago, I think. I may dislike you, Faith, but don't you dare go without knowing that I don't hate you, damnit.
The doctor arrives - female, if you must know - she took a quick look at the wound, asked a few questions, and asked for a thermal x-ray. I'm not big on medical technology, but I'm pretty sure everybody understood what it was. Lorne and Connor push the bedcot towards another room connected to the room we were in now. Pretty high-tech, even for Angel, but there are always needs for the job his team does. The two return and wait with the rest of us, while the doctor does her thing. It takes an hour or two.
"How long ago did this wound occur?" She asks, closing the door behind her. She's looking over her glasses, straight at Angel. He glances at me.
"From what I know, Jane, it's supposedly from two days. Fight with the First and all." He tells her. She sighs and shakes her head, plopping herself down in a chair.
"Well, data says otherwise." Everyone starts speculating, yelling, arguing, talking. Jane - Dr. Jane - raises her hand and motions us to quiet down.
"Listen, I'll show you the x-ray screening tests I performed. I took more than one, I wasn't sure if I had made a mistake the first time, but I'm pretty sure the other one proves I didn't." She goes into the dark room and I hear her clicking on a few buttons. The screen in the main room reveals the x-rays side by side. Blue dead, yellow normal, orange feverish, red burning. Nobody is particularly enthused by what we see.
I see a massive amount of red tearing through her body, and orange bordering it. And a bit of yellow bordering all that. But the frightening of all we were looking at, is the blue. I see spots of blue in the center of the red, where the wound had deeply punctured her body. Even worse, as the x-rays progressed, the mass spread further along Faith's x-rayed silhouette. I hear Dawn stifling a cry. After we all get a good look, Jane begins to speak.
"It may have been from the fight, yes. But something like this...You see how fast it's progressing? These are only 15, 20 minutes apart. At the beginning, it may have been slow, but the momentum's building. It's much too powerful to have not killed her in less than a day. This had to have happened sometime last evening. This is more than serious. If we don't find something to help her, she dies within-" She pauses to look at her watch.
"Within two hours." Willow bites her lip and whispers something to Fred. They both rush out of the room. Getting more books, I'm assuming. But that's the least of my worries. Actually, I don't even know what my worries are.
"My god." I hear Giles whisper hoarsely. He takes several people to go research for anything about this sort of magic, and a cure. Jane goes back to Faith, locking herself in to operate the splinters and the wood out of the body. The rest of us are busy making room for Fred's books and materials, as she returns armful by armful.
An hour later, Jane returns, her face beaded with sweat. She pulls out a cart from behind her, metal trays lining the top. They all had alcohol sloshing at the bottom, one held utensils, another held bloodied rags, and the last one held the wooden splinter and the shaft itself, Faith's blood mingling with the alcohol. The sterile smell wafts over the room as she pushes the tray with the weapon towards Fred.
"This is all I could get out without killing her. See if it helps." She sighed audibly as she slumped into a chair, and rested her head on her hands. Everybody returned promptly and Giles held onto his book.
"A magical poison used to burn away the flesh, requiring a complex number of ingredients. This would've taken the whole morning to make, and I know that everybody was accounted for. So unless some other being managed to burst in and attack Faith without our knowledge, I don't understand how it could've occurred." Jane stood up; she didn't look very happy.
"The thing is, if that had happened and she decided she didn't want to tell you about this...attack, then she must've tried to pull it out herself. But the shaft looked as though it was broken, and the girl's not stupid. She knows how to take something out without breaking it." Angel opens his mouth to speak, and his voice is strained.
"So you're saying, that this was no attack? That what's happening to Faith now, is what-"
"She did to herself." Willow emerges from the back. Apparently, not everybody had been present. She brings out a bottle of fiery red liquid and a broken shaft.
"I found this in Faith's room. I-I remembered noticing that some of my ingredients had been missing, and that Giles had-had 'misplaced' a book earlier. She must've worked on this yesterday morning, and-and...and..." She couldn't finish her sentence. I had to grab at the counter to keep myself steady. I closed my eyes, but that just brought on the flashback.
"...I know none of you really want me here, and now that the job's done,I'll be gone in the morning. That soon enough for you, B?" She turned to walk away. Her hand reached up to clutch at her chest before she closed the door behind her...