Title: Unloved

Series: Winter Tidings

Author: Jmaria

Rating: Pg-13

Disclaimer: I don't own or . Joss and owns them. I don't own the title either, Jann Arden does.

FfA Pairing: #730 Faith / Abe Sapiens (Hellboy)

A/N: This is what having your wmp set on All Music and on random gets you, weird ideas. Also, I've never read the Hellboy comic but I have seen the movie. So semi-spoilers for that.

Unloved

Whisper to me sweetly now and tell me I will
Never die
Unloved...unloved...unloved...unloved

Faith felt her body slam into the brick wall. The big red guy packed a solid punch. She grimaced as she felt the muscles tighten painfully as she pushed herself up. Reports of this 'Hellboy' had been circulating for years, but before she'd found out she was the slayer she'd never believed he'd really existed.

It had been the one thing she'd always wished were real when she was a kid, and now here she was getting her ass kicked and the big red man himself wasn't helping matters. One little turn down an alleyway in New York only to find herself up against a big bad ugly demon.

Next thing she knew, she was hurled backwards as Big Red threw himself into the mix. She felt a hot, stabbing pain in her abdomen that felt twenty times worse then when B had stabbed her. She looked up in disbelief at the large snarling demon as it retracted it's claw from her. She felt the blood spurt from her stomach. Clapping a hand to the wound, she pulled the stake from her pocket and slammed it into the demon's forehead.

The scaly demon collapsed to the ground, helped by the fact that Hellboy had yanked it backwards. Faith watched the fight for a second, but the demon was half dead anyway. Her vision blurred as she hit the ground.

Hellboy flipped the demon over to get a good look at it's face. His mouth dropped open a bit to see a wooden stake driven through it's skull. He hadn't done that. And that girl couldn't have . . .where was she anyway?

"Red, Come in Red." Liz's voice crackled over the radio.

"Comin' in loud and clear, Sparky."

"Did you get it?"

"Of course I . . .aw Hell!" He yelled, catching sight of the woman in a small pool of her own blood.

"Red? What's wrong?" Myers' voice asked worriedly.

"Get a unit, a girl's been hurt."
"A girl?"

"Yeah, she's losing a lot of blood, so move your ass." Hellboy turned his attention back to the girl. "Hey, can you hear me?"

"B?" She murmured before blacking out.

"Myers! Get here quicker!"

Faith couldn't seem to keep her eyes open. It scared her. She might not make it this time. There might not be a happy coma for her to slip into. A lot of images flashed through her mind. B, Red, Xan, Giles, Dawn - Robin. Robin's death. Her mother's death, her watcher's death, the mayor's death, more battles and more deaths than she could count. One thing kept playing in her mind. No one loved her, she was still the outsider. She would die alone, forgotten and unloved. Then there was an image of a big blue blob, a calming voice inside her head telling her that she wouldn't die that way. Three days later she opened her eyes again.

"Faith Amelia Stevenson. Boston 83. Only child of Anna Stevenson, died of cancer in 1996, cared for by Jennifer Grace for two years until her murder in the fall of 1998. She then made her way from Boston to Sunnydale." Abe Sapien said, his hand on top of the comatose woman.

"The escaped Californian murderess. Linked to the occult - " Tom Manning, the director of the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense boomed, throwing page after page down on the table.

"Slayer." Abe cocked his head at the first signs of movement. "Into every generation. . . and the Council watches them. But then there were two."

Manning shut up quickly. His mouth opened once - twice. Straightening his tie, he quickly gathered up all of the papers and shoved them back into the file folder. HB, Liz, and Myers all looked at him. This Council had to be pretty big for it to get Manning to shut up. Faith's eyes blinked open. She groaned loudly.

"Sounds like someone's playin my song." She glanced up at Abe, then over at the four other people in the room. "Blue. Red. You three Yellow, Pink and Black?"

"What was that?" Manning asked.

"Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. Pop culture reference." Abe and Faith said at the same time. Faith stared at him for a second.

"Mind reader?" She asked.

"It's better than being called Fish guy." Abe replied.

"Knew a guy once who thought he was a mind reader."

"He died."

"Yeah. So where the hell am I?"

"What the Hell are you?"

"Me? I'm Faith - a vampire slayer. I'm guessin' you're a demon, Hellboy? And from the looks of this I'm gonna say it's a Government facility."

"It is."

"Part of the Initiative?" Manning blanched at this.

"That's real?"

"Was when I slept with B's boyfriend." Faith grinned, Finn had been an ok guy. She remembered B re-introducing them last summer after they left L.A. to find more slayers.

"Riley and Samantha Finn." Abe supplied.

"The Finns . . .they work for one of our field offices." Manning muttered.

"That'd be em." Faith grimaced as a sharp pain throbbed through her abdomen. Blue blinked his big fish-like eyes at her.

"You should rest."

"How long I been out?"

"Not quite as long as last time. Just three days."

"Call Rupert Giles - tell him I ain't dead." Faith murmured, leaning back.

The room had nearly cleared out by the time she was comfortable. Blue went to the door with the rest of them.

"Hey, Blue!" She called.

"It's Abe Sapien." He replied to her unasked question.

"You gonna be here when I wake up, Abe?" She asked, remembering the blue shape telling her she was loved, and she wouldn't die that way.

"Yes." He smiled, closing the door behind him. Faith smiled as she drifted off to sleep.