...And she was back, pulling herself up, bit by bit, into full awareness. She lay still for a long time, getting used to the notion that she was back in the land of the waking, again. She wiggled her fingers, clenched and unclenched her toes, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. Everything seemed to be in its proper place; nothing was hurting, much.

She opened her eyes. Blackness, shifting to shades of blue and grey as her nightvision responded. A faint lance of pain went through her skull, and she lay still, waiting. A few breaths later it faded away without a trace. She turned her head to look around, grimacing because of the tube someone had run down one nostril and left there. A different room, now. A bit smaller, but laid out like pretty much any hospital room. She was still in a private one, she noticed. Well, that was nice of them. She dropped her head back to the pillow and stared at the ceiling.

Now what? She was more or less recovered from her injuries now, so what was she going to do next?

She had no idea.

Actually, that wasn't quite true. She knew of at least one thing that would not wait another minute. She was going to get out of this bed. She struggled to sit up, groaning as another wave of dizziness hit her. Damn, just when she thought her head was all better... though this seemed more like all the blood leaving her brain than actual damage-type pain. Nothing wanted to work quite right; every movement seemed sluggish, clumsy. She tried to raise a hand to touch the nose tube and managed to hit herself in the face with her palm, painfully hard.

"Ow! Shit...."

Her voice was a hoarse whisper, and she was wracked by a brief fit of coughing. Grabbing hold of the plastic tube, she pulled on it. A foot or so came out, and it was still in there. Where the hell did this thing go? Her eyes watered fiercely, and an awful burning feeling filled the front of her head. She hadn't felt that sensation since the time she had gotten drunk and thrown up through her nose. Another slow pull brought the end of the tube out, and she threw it away, rubbing at her nostrils. Great, her nose was running like a faucet.

She became aware of some discomfort in her arm, and she raised it to look. An IV tube was taped securely to her forearm, the end vanishing under a gauze pad near the bend of her elbow. Frowning, she brought her left hand over to pluck awkwardly at the tape, only to feel another tug from that arm. There was another tube on that side. She sighed. It took some maneuvering, but she eventually managed to get both of the needles out. Big needles, was her thought as she sat watching blood trickle from the wounds. A long minute passed before that bleeding slowed, and then reluctantly stopped. Not a good sign, that. Her healing powers should close up little holes like those in just a couple of seconds. Nearly instantly, on a good day. Obviously this day was not so good.

"Not much better than a human being, right now. Fuck." Her voice was still rough and painful, but it made her feel better to hear herself. She noticed something else, too. She was rank. Not just a little, either. Her hair was oily and nasty, her whole body felt grungy. And the situation underneath the sheets... she raised them and took a peek, but the smell made her gag. Maybe the super-senses were not always a good thing. Surely it wasn't as bad as it seemed, or people walking by in the hallway would be complaining about the stink.

She swung her feet to one side and sat on the edge of the bed for a while, breathing deeply. She wondered idly how long it had been. Leaning over, she took the clipboard off the hook at the foot of the bed. She had to bring the sensitivity of her eyes way up to read it in the darkness. Blah, blah, doctor-speak, blah, blah, blood pressure, a few unpronounceable medicine names, blah, blah.... Ah, here it was. Today's gibberish was dated July twenty-first. That would make it... sixty-three days since she was stabbed. Well. No wonder she was a little stiff. She hung the chart back on its hook and looked around the room, at the little stand beside her that held a telephone, and a barf dish. No flowers, or balloons, or cards, or candy. Nothing. It looked like visitor overcrowding had not been a problem. She stared at the floor in front of her feet and rubbed at her watering eyes. She had gunk in them, or something. After a moment, she put her hands on the bed to either side and pushed herself upright. She stumbled forward a step or two, but there was only an instant of panic before she regained her balance. Her legs felt a bit wobbly, but they did what she told them with only a little fuss. Her hair had spilled forward over her shoulders, and she pushed it back irritably. It was longer than it had been, and it definitely smelled bad. Weren't there supposed to be nurses or something to keep you clean when you couldn't do it yourself? She couldn't stand feeling like this for another minute. Whatever people might think of her; psycho, slut, or loser, she had standards. Being clean was important to her.

She walked carefully to the door. Leaning through, she looked out into the hallway. The lighting was dimmed, the silence disturbed only by distant murmurs and the faint beeps and hisses of medical equipment. Hers seemed to be the last room in the hall. To her left was a heavy door leading to the emergency stairs, to her right, the hallway stretched off quite a ways before taking a turn to the right. No one was in sight, and no voices came from any of the other rooms nearby. She pulled back inside and shut the door. She carefully made her way into the bathroom, and shut that door as well. When she flipped on the lights, she winced, clapping her hand over her eyes. They were too slow in responding to the brighter light, and her hypersensitive nightvision mode had gotten blasted. She leaned on the sink, blinking away tears and waiting for the spots to fade. When things had cleared, she looked up at herself in the mirror.

She had looked better. Her face was okay, and any cuts, bumps or bruises she had suffered were healed, but she was way underweight. Her eyes looked huge, her features gaunt. She stepped back and looked at her body. More of the same. Her arms and legs were painfully thin, and every one of her ribs was plain to see. She had lost thirty pounds, maybe more. Her hands were drawn to the hollow of her stomach. The scar tissue there was still plain to see, the ragged, shiny lines stretching the skin taut. She ran her fingers over it for a while, wondering if this one would fade like all the others. Maybe not; that was one mean knife that had gone through her. No one else could have taken that kind of damage and lived through it. Well, maybe just one other person; the girl who had done it to her.

"Stop it. I'm here; alive and kickin'. That's all that matters."

Clean; she wanted to be clean. Moving carefully, she got into the shower, slid the curtain closed and turned on the water. The hot water was the most wonderful thing she had ever felt in her life. Closing her eyes, she turned slowly in place, letting the spray hit her on every side. She hadn't realized how cold she was until that moment. Once the chill had been driven out of her body, she opened her eyes and investigated the little shelf built into the wall. The bathroom came stocked with soap and shampoo, though she doubted that anyone had expected her to ever use them. She scrubbed herself clean with soap and washcloth, and then she got started on her hair. It was a tangled mess; so dirty that it had nearly become dreadlocks. It took some effort, but she was eventually able to work through the snarls and start using the shampoo. She even gave in, just this one time, and actually lathered, rinsed, and repeated.

She felt better now, but also very tired. Rather than trying to make it back to the smelly bed, she eased herself down until she was sitting in the tub, the hot water falling on her like fierce rain.

What now? She was awake, and able to move around some. Where should she go? Her apartment would be long gone; it had been months since she had been there. There were some people (and some things) that she had met while working for Mayor Wilkens, but they wouldn't help her unless she could force them into it, especially now that he wasn't around to back up her demands. In fact, right now they would probably see her as prey, not an ally. She was too weak to chance a meeting with any vampires or demons, and that wouldn't change without some more recovery time, along with some serious exercise.

So, nowhere to go and no one she dared contact. Peachy. She supposed that this was one of those drawbacks to working the dark side that everyone had been telling her about. Well, screw them. All of them. She was fine; she was going to get out of here and get her life going again, and she didn't need anyone's help to do it. She'd been alone before she came to this town; she'd lived on the street for half her life. She knew how to take care of herself. She didn't need anyone to do it for her. She could handle being alone again. No problem.

"It's gonna be all right, it's gonna be okay, it's gonna be all right, it's gonna be okay, it's gonna be all right...."

She sat there for a little while, repeating that over and over to herself, trying to make herself believe it.

* * * * *

When Faith realized that she was in real danger of nodding off while sitting in the shower, she climbed awkwardly to her feet and turned off the water. The spray had never grown cold, and she sighed with the feeling of being warm all the way through. Her apartment had never run out of hot water either. Much better than that crappy hotel room, where every shower had been a race to finish before the water tried to turn you into ice.

There were two towels hanging on the rack, and she used them both to dry herself as thoroughly as possible. Piling the used soap and empty mini-bottles of shampoo in one of the towels, she walked back out into her room. She felt much better now that she was clean, but found that her knees were rapidly growing weak, and her head was feeling fuzzy and thick. She leaned against the window for support.

"Whoa." Her voice was a bit stronger, now. Not that there was anyone to hear except herself. "Worn out from taking a shower. Pretty pathetic, Faith." She opened the window and looked out. The hospital building was about five stories tall, and she was on the top floor. Craning her head, she could see the edge of the roof only a few feet over her head. Good. She balled up both towels, the evidence of her late-night activities wrapped in the center. Leaning out, she tossed the towels up in a hook shot that carried them onto the roof. She pulled back inside and closed the window. There. Even if someone found them up there, they were not likely to connect them with her. She padded across the cold floor, her bare feet scuffing along the tile. Opening the door, she peered out into the hall. No one around. Leaving it open, she returned to the bed and sat down, her legs trembling slightly from all the exercise. Combing her fingers through her still-damp hair, she pondered the next step in her master plan.

Waiting. She was going to have to wait a little while longer. She could maybe walk out of the hospital; she was recovered enough for that. But fighting? Forget it; anything could take her in her current condition. Besides, Buffy was out there somewhere. She shivered, one hand going to her belly. For whatever reason, the other Slayer had left her alive. Either that, or the white-hat gang didn't know where she was.... No, they knew. They just didn't care, because they thought she was a veggie for life. That made this the best place to rest up and get her head together. Where was she going to go when she got around to leaving? She wasn't sure. Well, there was time to think it over. Time was something she had plenty of.

Laying down, she pulled the sheets up to her chin. She supposed that if she really wanted to fool the hospital people, she should put the IV needles back in her arms and the tube back up her nose, but she wasn't up for that. Let them try and figure it out, she decided. The residents of Sunnydale had never impressed her with their perceptiveness, anyway.

She closed her eyes, and within moments she found herself drifting.

Later, she thought muzzily. She would figure something out later.

* * * * *

12:59 pm
July 24, 1999

Kira crouched down low beside the nurse's desk as the two that were on duty drank their coffee.

"--Heard that doctor Jennings lost another one last night. Some man who was on life-support, waiting for a heart transplant. They were sure he was stable, but he just suddenly crashed when nobody was looking. Steve told me that there was some kind of freak necrosis of his tissue, like he was dissolving inside his skin, right there in the ICU."

The other nurse made a sound of disgust.

"Ugh. I've heard of that happening. In fact, just a few weeks ago one of the coma patients did the exact same thing. Some of the lab people are whispering that it's a new strain of Ebola."

"Get out of here!" The first woman sounded like she wanted to laugh, but there was an edge of fear in her voice too. "Ebola in Sunnydale? Fat chance. Rumors like that will get us shut down in a hurry, so don't go spreading it around. Still, you can bet that I'm going to double-glove before I touch any of these people. I really think that it's probably--"

Kira eased past them and into the far hallway without being seen. They didn't know what was happening, none of them did. She shivered as she remembered the monster leaning over Melinda. It was still here, in the hospital, and nobody but her had seen it. It was scary to be out of her room; it might be able to find her out here. She couldn't help it; she was going crazy from being cooped up in there. She'd read all of her books twice, and played her Playstation until she got stuck in a really stupid part of the game. She had to walk around a little. She was also worried about the sleeping people out here. They were so helpless; they couldn't see the monster coming, and they couldn't run away even if they did.

She checked each of the rooms in the hallway, making sure that everyone was still where they had been. Weeks and weeks had passed since she had last been brave enough to come and look at them, but they were all still there. She couldn't bring herself to go into Melinda's room, so she edged past it and down to the last one, down at the end of the hall. The door was open, which meant that there was someone in there. She slipped into the room, giving a little squeak as a jolt went through her. She looked around, wondering what it had been. It had almost felt like a zap of static electricity, right as she had come through the door. It hadn't hurt, exactly, but it had been strange. She didn't see anything, and the feeling had faded while she'd been looking around. There was a girl in the bed, little bars of sunlight from between the window shades falling across her motionless form.

She was pretty. Kira walked up to stand next to the bed, staring into her face. Her skin was very pale, like most of the sleeping people, but on her it looked right. Her nearly black hair was long and straight, and seemed cleaner than was usual for someone who had been here a while. She must be new here, the girl thought. The nurses on this floor were awful about taking care of people. They were supposed to keep everyone clean (well, as clean as they could), and move them around every couple of hours to make sure they didn't get sores from lying in one spot too long. They almost never did all of that as often as they should have; leastways not the ones who worked up here. There were only one or two good nurses on the fifth floor, and they mostly worked mornings. The other ones just sat around and talked. Sometimes when they were bored they would do some stuff, but not any more than they absolutely had to. This girl in the bed would probably get ignored a lot, since she was way down at the end of the hall. Kira hoped that she wouldn't get bad sores or anything, even if she was sleeping and couldn't feel them.

She looked around the room curiously. It was empty, really empty. There weren't any flowers or cards or pictures or anything. The person's family almost always brought stuff, probably just to make themselves feel better about not being able to help the sick person. This was the first time she had seen someone who didn't have anything at all. The little girl walked over to look inside the small closet. Nothing in there; the sleeping girl didn't even have her old clothes or a pair of shoes from when she was still able to be awake. She went to look at the chart that was hanging on the foot of the bed. She was good at reading, but nobody could read all the doctor-talk on those papers. She could read the name, though.

"Faith." She considered that name for a minute, then looked at the girl's face again. "Hi Faith. I'm Kira. Can I sit here for awhile?" As always, there was no answer from the sleeping person, but that was actually comforting. She could pretend that things were like they had been before she had seen the dark monster. Sitting in the chair beside the bed, she swung her legs and looked at the girl. She tried to imagine what kind of person Faith would be, if she were awake. Strong, for one thing. Even laying there all thin and pale, she looked like she could be strong; maybe even strong enough to fight the monster. She was lonely, though. She must be; she didn't have any family or friends to bring her things. That was okay, Kira could be her friend. Faith would fight the monster and kill it before it could hurt anyone else, just like one of the heroes in her video game. Then they could leave the hospital and go live somewhere far away from Sonja and her bratty kids. She would miss her dad, but it would be better for him if he didn't have to make himself come and see her. It only made him sad to see her sick, anyway. Faith would be her big sister ('cause she wasn't old enough to be someone's mom, and Kira had a real mom already, even if she was dead) and they could eat pizza every day never go to school.

She smiled at that, looking down at her swinging feet. She wouldn't ever have to go to school even if she stayed here, she knew that now. She was sick; and they didn't think she was going to get better. The nurses talked about the people on the floor when they thought no one was listening, and they had said some things about Kira herself. She didn't know what 'white cell count' or 'drug resistance' meant, but they had been pretty clear on how bad she was. She had just turned six years old a while back, and they didn't think she would make it to seven. It was hard to think about something like that happening to her, but she didn't have much of anything else to do with her time. The funny thing was, it didn't really scare her. Maybe it was being around all the sleeping people, but dying didn't seem that bad.

So long as the monster didn't get her, that is. She didn't want to get killed by something, that was scary. She looked up at Faith again, and froze.

The other girl's eyes were open, and she was looking straight at Kira. Those eyes were dark, and there was a look in them of watchfulness, or sadness, maybe. Her mouth quirked into a faint smile and then she spoke.

"Hey there. Who're you?"

This was too strange; sleeping people never woke up, never in all the time she had been in the hospital. It was like a dead person had started talking to her. With a gasp she leapt to her feet and ran from the room as fast as her legs would carry her.

* * * * *

Faith blinked, looking at the door through which the kid had run. Well, that had been... odd. She closed her eyes and lay there, checking the condition of her body. Still run down, though not quite as badly. She was doing something more like real sleeping, now, instead of falling into short comas. This was better; it actually seemed to be helping her recover. Not that she could really improve a lot without more food than they were shoving down this damn tube, but she wasn't quite ready to get up again. Next time. Right now, more sleep sounded good. She drifted off, wondering why she had been dreaming about that little girl even before she had woken up to find her sitting beside the bed. Something about... horses? The kid had been sitting on one, and loving it, but she had been scared too, screaming something that the Slayer hadn't been able to hear.

Huh. Must still have some head trauma going on there, Faith. Sleep it off, get stronger then get gone.

Gone....

* * * * *