Disclaimers and story info located at Chapters 1 and 4. Additional warning: this chapter is very dark and possibly disturbing. Don't say I didn't warn you!
The guards looked shifty. That's what Wesley kept telling himself to justify why he had moved from a chair in the waiting area to one in the hall outside Faith's room. It had been about an hour since Buffy, Dawn, and Baby Summers had left, Sunnydale bound. No doubt Quinton had arranged for a flight. The Council had a small fleet at their disposal. He'd flown over the Atlantic himself, in a private jet, a few years prior, when he'd first been assigned to active duty as Watcher. Comfy thing. Plenty of leather, full bar – liquid courage. He could use some right about now. He'd been working up the nerve to enter that room and check on the woman who'd given birth just this morning. But he wasn't sure what to expect. Would she be weepy, sullen, angry? Suddenly Wesley got out of the chair, walked past the demon-guards, and into her room. He squinted immediately against the light; the shades were pulled up and the sun was beating down, full-force. He blindly stepped further into the room, hearing the door click as it closed. As his eyes adjusted Wesley took stock: the bed was empty. A few drops of red glared on the white sheet next to the discarded IV needle. Walking toward the windows, Wesley noted that they did not open, but merely consisted of a single pane of glass. A knot of anxiety grew steadily in his gut as he turned around. The bathroom door was closed shut.
"Faith?" He called quietly.
No answer.
"Faith?" He tried again, louder this time, but only slightly as not to alert the guards. No answer. No movement. Not the barest noise from within. At this point anxiety turned to cold fear, freezing all the way down his spine, spreading out and forward from his lower back and reaching around to grab his heart. This was the moment, the one frozen, hours in an instant.
Open the door to find the bathroom empty, note on the counter, probably to the effect of "screw that"; she'd escaped.
Open the door to find her laying in wait, porcelain slab from the toilet tank gripped in both hands, raised in the air, slamming home and crushing skull the moment he passed through the doorway.
Open the door to find her writhing in pain, foaming at the mouth, Wolfram & Hart having spiked her IV or her scrambled eggs.
Wesley took only two steps forward and the smell hit him, fragrant and familiar. Couldn't work side-by-side with a vampire and not know that scent. He stumbled toward the door and tried the handle; it was locked. He took a few steps back and rushed; the full weight of his body hit and forced it open, feet skidded on the floor, skated across the tile until his waist intersected with the sink, head smashed into the mirror. Dazed for a second, his eyes moved downward to the shiny object reflecting against the drain, blade with a handle, silver scalpel all covered in red. A slow glance to his right and he vomited the morning's coffee on top of the mess in the basin.
Faith was crumpled on the floor, inner arms smiling widely from wrists to elbows, muscle and tendon exposed on both, white bone visible on the left. He dropped harshly to his knees, pain registering somewhere in the back of his mind, a soft splashing sound echoing in the tiny room. Blood thickly coated a good portion of the floor, splattered the wall, smeared across the toilet's lid, and soaked into the roll of toilet paper. His hand gripped her face, turned it towards him; red prints smudged the sweat on her pasty white cheeks. Wesley put his head down to listen. No breath. Index and middle finger marked up her neck; pulse barely noticeable. Wesley reached out and grasped the handrail mounted on the wall and used it to pull himself off of his knees. Feet sliding again in the blood, one hitting Faith's right arm, forcing a bit more red into the mix. Flat-palmed, he slammed a hand against the emergency button on the wall and dropped down again, wrapped his hand tightly around the gaping right forearm, tilted her chin back and breathed into her open mouth, once (one-and-two-and-three-and-four-and), twice. Ear down to listen. Nothing.
"Jesus Christ." Came a voice from the doorway, white sneakers, now tipped in red, skidding and slipping, more voices, more shoes, a hand on his arm, removing it from Faith's. Thick fingers wrapped around the slayer's bare ankles and slid her body across the floor; her hair fanned out and made tiny trails in the puddle. She was in the doorway when they lifted her, and blood rained down from her brunette locks. Wesley turned and vomited again into the tiny plastic wastebasket. He sat down on the toilet lid and gagged as he realized that blood was seeping into the knees of his pants. He wondered suddenly and irrationally if, with all the transfusions during surgery, any of this blood was even Faith's.
A kind but frantic face filled his field of vision. Mouth moved with no sound. Nurse in multi-colored scrubs with pictures of storks carrying little bundles of baby. She grabbed his upper arms, slight pressure, and reality snapped back into place. His ears were assaulted by raised voices, screeching monitors and machines from without, and then by the woman in front of him.
"What happened? How long has she been like this?"
"I found her," Wesley croaked, amazed that his vocal cords were functional, "less than two minutes ago." The nurse nodded and stood and moved to the doorway, hands on the walls to keep from slipping. How much blood was on the floor, the sink, the wall? A liter? Two? How much could one lose and still survive? He should know, he'd been told not that long ago. How much had he lost in those hours on the grass? Seemed like less, but a slayer's constitution was different. She'd been close to death before and managed to pull through.
"Let's get you out of here. You need to be looked at." The nurse was in front of him again, fingers under his chin, tilting his head slightly. "What happened to your head there?"
"I slipped..." Wesley muttered, and the nurse followed his gaze to the shattered mirror.
"Let me get a wheelchair. Just a minute."
"I'm fine-" Wesley started, but as he got to his feet the world shifted, pain in his head, knees gave, floor moved from horizontal to vertical. The nurse turned around just in time to see Wesley's face collide with the tile.
TBC