Chapter 21: Awake

Taking another bite of a large BLT and mayo baguette, Faith had to disagree with all the moaning about hospital food: It was way better than prison food. Gulping down the final remains of the cold Red-Eye that she had had to put together herself — following an argument with the barista/waitress that it should always be on the list, it is a real coffee, and that the old bitch should know coffee if she plans to make a career out of it — whilst swallowing her final bite of BLT, Faith resigned herself to the fate of bedsitting for many more hours again. She grabbed a large pack of a chips and a can of soda from the vending machine and began making her way back to the room.

A few corridors down from Willow's room, Faith could hear the recognisable sound of a flat lining machine, and began jogging to Willow's room. "Shit, don't be Red, don't be Red." She muttered under her breath as she ran, her items held forgotten in her hands.

Reaching the corridor it was clear by the number of nurses running in and out of the room that it was Willow who was flat lining again. Placing herself against the wall of the corridor, out of the way of the army of nurses who were running around frantically, Faith cringed at the situation,
"Fuck."

"Fuck!" Willow screamed, her breath coming fast and shallow as she struggled to remain conscious with the pain flowing through her body. She was somewhat aware of people around her, supporting her from falling but didn't have time to air her thankfulness as another excruciating bout of pain smacked her deep in the chest.

"What the fuck is happening? Why is this hurting so much?" She just about managed to ask, her teeth clenched in agony.

Luna was beyond worried, something terrible was happening and none of them knew what it was. All they knew was that Willow was in Heaven despite her body still being on Earth, and that Tara had appeared, died again, resurrected her dead self and then disappeared. Something was quite obviously not right about this situation.

"Joyce, go down and check on them."Luna ordered softly.

Joyce nodded, walking away to the other side of the lounge-like-simulation place.
Closing her eyes and holding her hands out in front of her, palms touching, fingers woven together, she whispered Buffy's name. Bringing her eyes closed tighter, and holding the praying position until her knuckles turned completely white, she disappeared.

"Jenny, go check on Faith, I'll stay with Willow." Reluctantly Jenny nodded, her eyes glancing once again at the redhead in severe pain. Worried that she may disappear before her return, Jenny wondered over and gave the redhead a quick peck on the forehead.

"Hang in there." She whispered in her ear.

Repeating the same actions as Joyce, Jenny held her hands in front of her, envisioned Faith on the inside of her eyelids and called out to her before disappearing as well.

Tara's chest burned with such intensity that she saw pure white. She couldn't decide whether to shield her eyes or her chest, neither of which really made a difference. She settled for her elbow to wrist over her eyes, and rested her other hand on the shirt above her heart. Tears streamed down the sides of her face, pooling into hairs behind her ears.

She wasn't sure what she had done to deserve such punishment in her afterlife, but figured it must have been for a reason. Giving herself up to the fates she moved both hands and stared at the whiteness that surrounded her. She tried her damndest to separate her soul from the body so she couldn't feel the intensity of the pain anymore.

Astral projection was something that she had often tried but had never managed to do properly. Rarely getting past the feeling of floating whilst falling asleep in bed, she wished so badly that she could separate right now. If she weren't dead, she probably would have wished for death to claim her, anything to subdue the pain.

"Okay she's flatlining, I need the defib stat." Waiting for the nurse to set up the machine and pass the paddles over before Dr Russell continued.
"Charging at 200! Charged! Clear!" He shouted clearly to all in the room.
The paddles sending a very brief shock to Willows body, the effect immediately obvious by the rhythmic beeping that came from the heart monitor. The nurses stood around the redhead, prodding and probing with all kind of instruments to check that everything was in the normal levels after the second scare she had had since her arrival.

Faith visibly breathed easily at the sound of the beeps coming from the redheads room. Once again she was at least awake. Faith paled, her mind rushing with choices of whether to lie or to be honest.

I gotta call B, I gotta tell her what happened and that Red's awake. Shit, B's gonna kill me, she's gonna wanna know what happened, and I'm gonna havta say I was too busy stuffing myself and getting my caffeine fix to watch her dying wiccan. She's probably gonna kill me with a damn heart monitor lodged in to my skull. Fuck. I could lie, I could tell her that I was there or that I ran out to get the...

Faith was interrupted as a nurse noticed had standing in the corridor.

"Are you here with Rosenberg?" She asked, her thumb gesturing behind her to Willow's room.

"Yea." Faith replied simply, wondering what the nurse wanted.

"You realise visiting hours ended hours ago?" The nurse asked, her tone showing signs of annoyance.

"Yea well, I gotta watch her." One of Faith's eyebrows flying high on her forehead. She had been there for two days, Buffy had been there for a week before. Faith hadn't even realised there were visiting hours here, if she had known she probably would have sneaked around more.

"I need you to leave." The nurse rudely placed a hand on Faith's arm and guided her to the exit.
Faith went along with the nurse, biting her tongue to not snap at her for touching her, and clenching her hands around her chips and soda to avoid smacking the bitch in the face.

Good people don't smack annoying nurses in the face, fighting for redemption Faith, gotta be a good girl, no smacking the wench. Just smile, nod, walk out, then come back. A sickly sweet smile appeared on Faith's face it looked odd and was visibly forced, in fact it looked somewhat painful, like her face wasn't used to contorting in such a manner.

Faith decided to pop out for a smoke, ring Buffy then come back and check on Red for the rest of the night.

Willow's pain disappeared immediately. A frightening thought ran through her mind at Concorde speed... After realising that she probably was not suddenly and randomly paralysed, Willow exhaled.

Sweaty palms clinging to her chest, tear paths over her cheeks, bloody protruding from her bottom lip from biting down too hard. She was not a pretty picture. Her eyes moved past Luna stood in front of her and realised that the mist that usually surrounded the place had disappeared. Everything was now in perfect clarity. Looking up to meet Luna's eyes she smiled softly.

"The mist's gone." She stated randomly, afterwards wondering why she thought that was the most important thing to say at that particular surreal moment in time.

"Completely?" Luna asked softly.

At Willow's nod, Luna broke into complete and unrestrained sobs.

Faith sat once again at Willow's bedside. Her plan to get back into the building without being detected was completely unnecessary. She simply walked back onto the ward and then walked straight in to Willow's room. No one gave her a second glance or even debated stopping her. In hindsight she wondered if her carefully laid out plan would have worked anywhere, shame, Faith had always fancied skydiving.

The phone call with Buffy had gone as expected, she had been sad, then pissed, then sad again. Faith had mostly stayed silent while Buffy completely slated everything she had ever done, and the pent up frustration was planning to overthrow her bored and energized body.

Looking down at Willow, she remembered that Buffy had asked her to do something.

Faith glanced towards the closed door to the room checking her solidarity, before completing what was asked of her.

"Alright, so don't think I'm like wicked weird, but B asked me to do this Red. I know I ain't usually one for following orders but I already fucked up today and I don't wanna add any more fuel to the fire or whatever okay? I'm real sorry I wasn't here when you died again. I shoulda been, I know we ain't exactly friends but I made a promise and I probably shoulda stuck to it so yea, sorry about that. And ya know, back in the day, I'm sorry for what I did then as well. Ya know with the knife thing, and the mayor and kidnapping Joyce and stuff. But I'm different now. If you ever wake up you might even see it. I got one more thing to say, and don't make me feel like a twat for saying it, I really hope you can actually hear me. Hurry the fuck up and wake up, B is going crazy without you. She's blaming herself for what you did, and I'm pretty sure you being like this is killin' her. So wake the fuck up now. She told me to tell you that she erm, fuck, that she loves you and she wants you home."

Faith begrudgingly held Willow's hand, it was awkward but was also quite comforting to her.

"So yea, that's my message. I'll shut up now."

Faith sat there for a few seconds still holding Willow's hand before feeling like an idiot and releasing it. As she let go the heart monitors beeping increased and the triangles were going intensely fast. The redhead's body shuffled around softly, her hand grasping out to reach Faith's hand even though it had moved.

Faith stood up at the side of the bed and looked down at Willow, but when her eyes opened, Faith was staring in to the bluest eyes she had ever seen.

"Holy clusterfuck Blondie!" Faith screamed out.

The blonde's eyes struggled to focus, squinting at the harsh light that hit her eyes, she managed to just about see Faith staring down at her.

"Hi." She croaked out, hoarse from the lack of liquids down her throat for over a week. Faith jumped around the bed, pouring some water into a plastic cup and guiding it to Tara's mouth.

"Thanks." Tara just about managed to hoarsely say.

"Jesus Blondie. Red was there and then you. What the fuck just happened?"

Faith was met with a quizzical reply.

"You don't know? You were Red and now you're you." Faith's hands frantically waved around trying to point to where Willow had previously been laid.

Tara stared dumbfounded for a few more seconds, looking at Faith's animated hand movements.

"Are you speaking English?"

Faith laughed out loud at the slightly less croaked question presented to her. Not quite sure what was happening she found the situation pretty interesting and apparently rather funny.

"Haha, I just, you were Willow."

Faith's laughter stopped immediately when she heard the next word that changed the situation from being funny to heartbreakingly ironic.

"Who?"