Chapter 3
Robin

There was a large ginger cat in the street outside Robin's home, meowing pathetically. Robin stopped outside the door, watching it. It wasn't a cat he had seen before around the neighborhood, and though the street was already dark he could tell that it looked pretty shabby, its fur all matted and its eyes runny.

He put his briefcase down and crouched down, calling, "Here, kitty, kitty!"

The cat, though still apprehensive, walked up to him, which told him that it must have had an owner at some point; true strays stayed away from humans if they could.

Its time as a pet was long since past, though. As it come closer, Robin found that it wasn't dirt matting its fur, but scabs of old wounds.

"Guess it's time for today's good deed," he said softly, stroking the creature's back. He felt the skin smooth out under his touch, wounds melting away into nothingness.

The cat made a surprised "mrr?" sound and stared at him with big yellow eyes.

"Enjoy," he told it. Strange, that this would be his power – to cure mangy little animals. Call in the amazing vet boy. All his life he had spent fighting, training, desperate to get his vengeance, and though he'd often wished for Slayer strength or speed, it never would have occurred to him to wish for something like this.

Well, the vengeance train had long left the station, and maybe it was time he reconsidered his position in life. It couldn't very well get any stranger.

If only he could have used his newfound ability on himself. His school day had been such an absolute nightmare that he'd actually sneaked a peek in the basement, but he'd found no seal. The kids' behaviour was only metaphorically hellish. Even so, it had been enough to give him a headache, and he felt tired to the bone. Perhaps he ought to stop hunting vampires on school nights.

He picked up his briefcase and unlocked the door. The cat tried to follow him in, so he was forced to gently prod it outside with his toe before closing the door. Healing strays was one thing, but he drew the line at making them house guests.

Once inside, he headed straight for the couch. He had a pile of paperwork to do, but if he wanted to keep his reputation as a competent principal, he really needed some shut-eye first. Faith would have needled him for it, said he was getting old, but it was easy for her to be resilient: a Slayer not responsible for anyone but herself.

Jesus, maybe he was getting old. He couldn't recall being this tired since his time in the hospital after Sunnydale. He started to kick off his shoes, but the crash of shattering glass made him freeze.

Someone was moving in the kitchen, causing a clinking sound. Still glass - they'd broken the window to come in.

Who had broken the window?

As quietly as he could, Robin opened his briefcase and took out a knife from the inner compartment, hoping it would serve. Judging from its steps, the intruder wasn't too big - either that, or it was very light on its feet.

He put his shoes back on and moved slowly towards the kitchen, alarmed when a slim and strictly female shape emerged from the shadows.

"Faith?"

But it wasn't Faith; he could tell that much even before she came closer. Then she attacked, and he found himself ducking the punches and kicks of a small, furious blonde. She was much stronger than she should be, but unarmed, and he managed to catch her in a grip around the neck, holding her chin up with his forearm and placing the blade of the knife above her collarbones.

"What are you?" he asked. "Why are you here?"

She recoiled – but not from the knife, he noticed. From his arm. "Don't touch me!"

What the hell? Something about this was very weird. And, it occurred to him, very familiar. The way she had fought... He tilted her head so he could see her face, and recognized one of the vampires from the night before.

"How the hell did you find my apartment?" he asked, tightening his grip. A thought struck him. "And how the hell did you get in?"

"The window," she said sarcastically.

He looked at the large hole in the window. "You weren't invited."

There was a slight pause, and then she said, "The Slayer invited me."

"The Slayer doesn't live here," he pointed out. "Also, she's not an idiot. How did you get in?"

She started struggling, despite the knife at her throat, but he was careful not to kill her. If the vampires had found a way to enter, he wanted to know what it was.

"All right!" she shouted at long last. "Nobody invited me; I don't know how I got in! It's all because you did this to me, now stop touching me before you make it worse!"

"What are you talking about?" he asked, bewildered, but even as he spoke, the pieces started coming together in his head. He was touching her naked skin, just like he had done the previous night, when he grabbed her neck during the fight. That time, it had been his burned palm against her skin, like with Faith a few minutes later, and the cat as he came from school...

"My God..." he breathed, stunned by the revelation. His grip must have loosened, because the vampire broke free and wrenched the knife from his hand, attacking him with it. He felt the edge of it sting his cheek as he ducked. A split second slower and he'd have been grinning with his neck.

He avoided another of her swipes with the knife. Though she was stronger than a human woman her size, she was weak and uncoordinated for a vampire – definitely worse off than she had been before. Physically, they were evenly matched now, but he had fought full-strength vampires twice her size and won. He knew his own body; she didn't know hers.

He kicked the knife out of her hand. It flew away across the floor, and he didn't bother to try and catch it. Instead, he kept kicking, harder and harder, until he lay still on the floor.

He took a step back, looking at the immobile body. She appeared to be dead, but then, she was a vampire, not a human. Well, sort of a vampire.

After a moment's thought, he backed away from her to his weapon cabinet and took out some chains,with an eye on the vampire in case she started moving.

She didn't, though, not even when he first attached the chains to her wrists and ankles and then hammered them to the wall. Once he was done, he gave her a long, hard look and finally knelt down beside her. If this didn't work, he had just furnished his home with a corpse, and he'd have hell trying to explain it to Faith next time she stopped by.

He put his hand on the vampire girl's head and, after some hesitation, moved it to under her shirt. He wasn't sure where the punches had hit, but head and torso seemed like a good guess. Her body was cool, and she had no pulse, but there was something else, something stirring... Without knowing quite how he did it, he pushed himself a little harder, reaching in to that something and trying to spread it out through his fingers into the rest of her body.

The vampire moaned and turned her head slightly too the side. Robin waited, but when she didn't move further, he shrugged and stood up.

The motion made his head spin and his knees buckle. Whoah. Clearly he should have known better than to try to fight a vampire while sporting a migraine. Then again, if he hadn't fought her, he wouldn't have a head in which to have a migraine.

He steadied himself against the wall and gave it some thought. The girl wasn't going anywhere, and if it was true that his touch was the reason she could enter uninvited, he didn't have to worry about any other vampires; the only other one he had touched, he had also killed.

Since he wasn't about to sleep near a vampire, chained or unchained, he went into the bedroom and once again kicked off his shoes before lying down on the bed. Thank God he was the principal; he could only imagine trying to explain to a boss why he was late with his work. 'I was attacked by a semi-human vampire, and then I took a nap.'

Life was so much simpler when you didn't have to lie to people. All he had to do was keep certain things secret, and that was okay. People expected the boss to keep secrets; it was a good image.

He closed his eyes, hoping half an hour of sleep would make him more alert.

Someone was shaking his shoulder, and he swatted them away, eager to stay asleep. After a while, the shaking stopped, and he buried his face in the pillow to escape the morning sun.

The blanket moved and a cool, smooth body eased in next o him. He rolled over, wrapping his legs against hers. Then his waking brain took over and thought, 'What if it's not Faith?'

He sat up abruptly, heart pounding, and Faith had to grab the mattress not to fall off the bed.

"Easy, cowboy," she said. "What's wrong?"

"I thought..." His mouth was dry, and he swallowed hard. "I thought you were someone else."

She lay down on her back, clasping her hands behind her head. "That girl in the living room?"

Faith had seen the vampire girl? Well, of course she had. The damned creature was chained to the wall. "You didn't set her loose, did you?"

"Nah. I figured, you chain a girl to the wall, she probably did something to deserve it." Faith must have caught something amusing in his expression, because a grin spread over her face. "Plus, she sneered and called me 'Slayer' in that menacing tone of voice. Dead giveaway. What is she, a demon? Your new girlfriend?"

"Vampire," he replied, lying back down. His heart was still pounding. "From the lair we took down. She's the one..."

"Who kicked you in the balls," Faith filled in. "I thought she looked familiar. Huh. You have a weird way of taking out your vengeance."

He had to laugh at that. "It's not vengeance. She came here to kill me."

Faith frowned. "And the reason you didn't kill her is..."

"That she came here to kill me." He turned his hand up, looking at the palm where the burned runes were starting to fade into brown. "I did something to her when I fought her, and whatever it was, it means she doesn't have to be invited. And she's furious about it."

Faith looked at his palm too. "You mean you... cured... her fanginess?"

"Altered it, in any case. It made me somewhat curious, as I'm sure you understand."

"Wow. Yeah. That's wicked!" She looked ready to jump him right then and there, and he had to admit, he was more than willing to go along with that plan. "So is she the reason you haven't returned my calls?"

"You called?" He glanced over at the phone and found it blinking.

"Only all morning. What, you thought this was a social call?" She sat up, and he figured his chance at wake-up sex was past. "The night before last, as you and I were out hunting vampires - actually, a few hours after that, but never mind - a bunch of lamebrains disappeared from one of those occult-slash-gothic clubs. They're not technically missing yet, 'cause you have to be away longer than that before you count as missing, but the morning papers have started asking the kind of questions that'll be headlines of satanic rites once the tabloids are out."

He sat up too, slowly. "And you're thinking it actually was satanic rites?"

"How should I know? But I am thinking that those bozos got in over their heads, and I doubt they're coming back... well, coming back alive, in any case."

"Okay." He reached for his pants and started thinking over their options. "I have to go to work, but tonight, we could... what?"

Faith stared at him. "You're going to work?"

"I usually do in the mornings," he pointed out.

"Yeah, but not at eleven thirty in the mornings."

"What?" He grabbed his watch, and she was right; it was almost eleven thirty.

"I assumed you'd called in sick. When did you go to bed last night?"

"Around nine," he said, still staring at his watch. How the hell had he slept for fourteen hours straight?

"Huh?"

"You said it." He kicked off the blankets and started putting on his pants. Half the day gone already; he might as well do as Faith suggested and call in sick.

Faith jumped off the bed and picked up the dress she had left in a pile on the floor, putting it back on.

"Maybe you really are sick," she said.

There was a concern in her voice that both touched and annoyed him. "I'm fine. I needed to catch up on my sleep, that's all."

He was telling the truth, or at least he hoped he was. He felt fine, and thank God for that. He had used to take minor illnesses with a philosophical calm, but after Sunnydale he hated being sick. Two months in a row was enough to last a lifetime, as far as he was concerned.

Faith dropped the subject and asked, "Want to go play with the vampire?" with a flirtatious smile.

It always unnerved him when she did that, connected slayage and sex as if it was all the same thing. He was reminded of Buffy, in the arms of his mother's killer and - if word was to be believed - another vampire before that. The mere thought disgusted him. But everything was about sex with Faith; everything and nothing, because he was fairly certain that she had never actually slept with a vampire, no more than grinding against the chairs every time she sat down meant she was prepared to have sex with them.

If he was wrong, he never ever wanted to hear about it.

"That's what I had in mind," he said, buttoning up his shirt and following her into the living room.

The vampire girl was sitting with her back to the wall, and gave them a murderous glance when they entered. "Come to gloat, Slayer?"

"Not at all," Faith said amiably. "I come to guinea pig you. You can enter uninvited. What else can you do?"

She could hardly have expected a reply, and indeed, the girl just scoffed and turned her face away.

Faith stepped up and slapped her, and then slapped her once again on the backswing. The girl growled at her, but contrary to Robin's expectations, she didn't go into demon face.

"Come on," Faith taunted her, slapping her again. "Talk to me, chica!"

The girl seemed to struggle with something, her face contorted in fury and pain. Finally she fell back against the wall, howling and sobbing.

"Well, well, well," Faith said in a low voice. "I guess we've found something you can't do." She leaned down, her neck inches away from the vampire. "Aren't you gonna bite me?"

The girl lunged at her, snapping her teeth towards the offered neck, but she kept her human appearance. Faith quickly moved back.

"She can't," Robin said slowly. "She can't change her face anymore."

"You made it worse!" the girl screamed in falsetto. "I told you not to touch me!"

"I was trying to keep you alive," he pointed out.

"I'm not alive," she yelled. "I shouldn't be alive. Kill me! Kill me or turn me back!"

"She's got a point," Faith said, watching the vampire girl with a frown. "You can defang vampires, and that's... well, awesome, but what are you gonna do with her? Keep her as a pet?"

Robin watched the vampire as well, trying to think. Short-term, he wanted to keep her around, try to figure out what effects his touch had on her and use that knowledge for future fights. Long-term, he definitely didn't want to keep a vampire as a wall ornament, but was she even enough vampire to be dusted anymore?

"I'm not sure we can kill her," he said. "She might leave a body. This isn't the kind of neighborhood where you can dump a corpse with a stake through its heart and think it won't be discovered."

Faith looked as if she was about to throw up. "Oh." She hesitated for a moment, and then asked, "D'you think she's got a soul?"

The girl's head whipped up. "I don't!" she hissed.

"She might," Robin replied.

"That's a filthy lie! I never did!"

"Uh, you kind of did when you were a human," Faith said, addressing the vampire.

"That was a phase."

"Riiiight." Faith turned back to Robin. "So, big vamp defanger. You gonna make this your new side gig?"

The idea had some merits. Unfortunately, it had some very obvious flaws as well. "What, and end up with a hundred half-vampires chained to my wall? I'd rather not. Maybe I should go down to the hospital – do some good."

"Oh, since when are you the big life-saver?" Faith scoffed, clearly disappointed. She sat down on the floor, legs akimbo, facing the girl. "Okay, since it seems you'll be our only treat for now, we might as well get to know each other. What's your name?"

The girl stared at Faith in sullen silence, and Faith slapped her hard. "Let's make a couple of things clear. I'm a Slayer. You're a defanged vampire. I can fuck you up like you wouldn't believe, so you might as well start talking."

The girl remained silent, immobile. Robin sighed. "Maybe I should try to turn her all the way human. It might make her more cooperative."

"Ella," the girl said immediately, her voice quivering with hatred. "It's Ella."

"Just Ella?" Faith asked. "Not Vampirella or Mariella or... Cinderella or something?"

The girl - Ella - didn't bother to answer.

Faith waited a while, and then stood up. "You handle the interrogation," she told Robin. "You seem to scare her more than I do anyway."

That was true, and it told Robin something about this Ella's priorities. She took pride in her vampirism, which meant there was a fairly good chance she'd already found the answers to some of their questions on her own.

"When did you first find out what had happened – what I'd done to you?" he asked, correcting himself as he spoke. "Right away?"

She sat quiet for a few seconds, but when he sighed and reached out to touch her cheek, she reluctantly replied, "I got tired. My face was heavy, and it hurt trying to put it on. I didn't know what was wrong with me. Father... made me hold my hand in the sun."

"And what happened?" Robin asked.

She held up one of her chained arms. The skin was reddish-brown and peeling. White girl's sunburn. Definitely not something he would ever have expected to see on a vampire. But unless she'd been holding her hand out for hours, no human should have been burned like that either, and somehow he couldn't see any vampire patient enough to force a minion to sit with her hand in the sun all day – provided the girl would even allow it.

"Did he try anything else?" he asked. "Stakes? Crosses?"

"Yeah," Ella said with disdain, "'cause we keep those around."

Robin clicked his tongue and went over to the weapons cabinet. He obviously couldn't take the risk of a staking, but he took out a small vial of holy water and a couple of crosses.

Faith's eyes widened at the sight, but Ella didn't move a muscle as Robin crouched down next to her and uncorked the water vial. Slowly, he dripped holy water down on the skin of her face and watched how tiny red spots blossomed and then faded, not unlike the effect of candle drippings on a human. Her expression didn't change; the pain was most likely slight. He tried pouring the rest of the vial's content in a heavier stream, and as her cheek turned red he noticed her scowl and the way she bit her lip. Yes. That hurt. But there was no hissing, no smoke or stench of burning flesh.

Curiosity peaked, he reached out to erase the burn and start afresh. She whipped her head back. "Keep your filthy healing hands off me!"

"I thought we agreed you were going to cooperate," he said, his voice silken.

She gritted her teeth and gestured with her chin towards Faith. "She can do it."

Robin contemplated staking Ella on the spot, corpse or no corpse. But if he did that, he'd never find out just what kind effect his touch had on vampires. He tossed the crosses to Faith. "Do you mind?"

"Not at all," Faith said, catching the crosses with ease. "I can torture her some for the team."

"It's not torture, it's experimentation."

"Fine. I can experiment some for the team."

She really could, too. He could tell that it bothered her, that some part of her brain thought of Ella as a young girl rather than as a vampire, but as she tried different spots to place the crosses and then moved on to testing other weapons and combinations, Robin was both fascinated and appalled to see her ingenuity. He remembered what Buffy had told him about Faith's past, and wondered what kind of experience had given her this level of skill. When she cut her own skin and let the blood drip into Ella's mouth to see her reaction, it was with a teasing lightness than was hard to stomach.

Half an hour later, they had determined that crosses, like holy water and sunlight, only caused a mild burn that was somewhat more damaging on sensitive areas. They had also found that Ella was slow and weak compared to other vampires, but that her "defanging" didn't seem to have slaked her bloodthirst. She still had no pulse, but Faith claimed she was getting warmer.

The existence or nonexistence of her soul was still undetermined.

Faith stood up and straightened her back. "I'm bored. Not to mention hungry. What do you say we get out of here?"

"I should call the school," he said. "And ideally a glazier, but... well, I guess that'll have to wait."

"Five minutes," Faith said. "I pick the place. None of those crappy vegetarian places."

"Okay," he agreed. "Just as long as there's at least one dish without meat."

Faith could be reasonable when she wanted to, and the deli she chose had several vegetarian items. She also only grumbled a little when Robin suggested that they'd take the hospital next.

"Okay," she said once they were standing in the emergency room. "Now what?"

Looking around, he had to admit it was a very good question. The room was full of people: sitting, standing, being wheeled in on stretchers. Some of them were bleeding, some were surrounded by doctors and nurses. He couldn't go around touching them all; he'd be kicked out for disturbing the patients.

The staff hurried by with a patient, yelling instructions to each other. The man on the stretcher looked pretty bad, but Robin knew no one would thank him for butting in. For the first time in his life, he was an actual super hero, and he felt utterly helpless. What he needed was somewhere he could work in peace.

"Palliative care," he told Faith in a low voice. "Let's find a lost cause."

"Good idea!" Faith said. "It's harder to fuck someone up if they're already dying."

She was joking, but even so, she had a point. How much did he really know about this power the sheath had given him? It had fixed Faith's hands, and the cat's fur, and it had turned an ordinary vampire into something else, but he had no way of knowing if all its effects were positive. He hadn't even been able to get in touch with the archaeologist.

They found the right corridor and, after trying a few doors, a room without visitors or nurses. There were two people in the room, both asleep or - more likely - comatose. One was a man, probably still young, but with a hollowed out face that made his age hard to guess. The other was an older woman, her face worn and wrinkly after a long life.

He should take the man first. He knew he should. But he stopped by the woman, taking in her appearance. Something about her reminded him of his mother, even though she was older not only than Mom had been when she died, but than she would have been now. She must be about Crowley's age, though she wasn't as well preserved as the old Watcher. She'd had a long life – if she wasn't fulfilled now, she never would be. He should start with the man.

"Are you going to do something or just stand there?" Faith asked, pacing the room.

He reached out, very slowly, and touched the woman's cheek. Her skin was thin and soft, hanging loosely from the bones.

This time, he could feel the disease inside her body, struggling against his touch and causing his palm to burn with pain. It was a dizzying experience, but he kept his hand still, knowing that if he stopped before he was done, he would only have stirred things up in the old woman's body and made it hurt worse.

"It's time to wake up," he told her softly, fighting the burn in his hand. "You can do it."

She didn't wake up. But as the sensation stopped, she took a deep breath and turned her head to the side, clearly at peace.

"I think it worked," Faith said in his ear, so close it made him jump. He had forgotten she was there.

He nodded at her comment. Like her, he thought it had worked.

His feet were a bit unsteady, and he sat down on the stool by the other patient's side, not sure he could manage to stand up after another ordeal like this.

In truth, he wasn't sure he could manage another ordeal like this, period. But he owed it to the man to try.

The pain was stronger the second time, but he got the distinct feeling that he wasn't the only one fighting. Unlike the woman, the man hadn't accepted defeat.

"That's it," he said. "Come on..."

There was no doubt of his success this time. The man's eyelids fluttered open, and his drowsy face had a puzzled frown as he looked from Robin to Faith. "Who...?"

Robin panicked. "We're not here. You... uh... you're still waking up. Just close your eyes and.. uh... give it some time."

Faith snorted with laughter, but the man must have been very drowsy, because he actually did close his eyes and gave Robin enough time to drag Faith out of the hospital room.

"We're not here?" Faith repeated once they were out in the corridor. "What the hell was that all about?"

Robin kept dragging her through the corridor until they reached an elevator and could get some privacy. Once in there, he pressed the stop button.

"I don't really care to become Cleveland's local miracle worker," he said. "If anyone in this hospital knows their job, that room is going to be swarming with nurses soon enough."

"And you think telling him, 'it's all a dream' is going to change that?" Faith asked, still laughing. "Give me a break. I don't even believe that stuff in fairy tales."

"Well, like I've told you," he said, "you're unusually cynical for your age."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." She leaned against the rail by the wall. "So, are you gonna start the elevator again, or do you want to have some fun first?"

There was no way he'd have sex in the elevator at a moment like this, but at least they were safe for the time being, and he let himself relax.

Unfortunately, that also meant that the fatigue caught up with him, and the world darkened for his eyes.