Chapter 5
Robin

The sun set without Faith coming back, but Robin wasn't very concerned; he figured she had probably decided to go on patrolling the local cemeteries. It would have been nice if she could have called him, but Faith was Faith, and it was unlikely the idea had even occurred to her. He tried doing a bit of paperwork - being away from the school didn't mean he could slack off - and when his concentration failed him, he sat down with a mystery novel.

People passed by the door and he listened with half an ear as he tied together the clues concerning the body in Mr. Thipps' bathtub. It was an intriguing mystery, and the only one by that author he hadn't read before.

A series of slow, dragging steps were followed by the sound of a key in his door. That did make him concerned – more than concerned, downright worried. He put the book down and hurried out into the hallway, just as Faith came through the door. Her face was sickly pale and her hair damp with sweat.

"What happened?" he asked, putting his arm around her shoulders to support her. "The sword, did it..."

"The sword was great," she said, slurring slightly. She lifted her right hand, which held a long object wrapped in dark velvet. "I love the sword. I couldn't have done it without her."

"Then what...?" The thought that she might be drunk turned up in his head, but he rejected it. Even if she'd be reckless enough to drink on the job, Faith had a high tolerance for alcohol.

"Little thing called the odds," she explained to him. "Can't always beat them."

Suddenly cold, he grabbed her around the waist with both hands and started feeling his way around, until he got to the sticky spot on her back, clumsily tied up with the same kind of cloth she'd used for her sword.

"You drove back home with a wound like this?" he asked. "You need an ambulance!"

"Couldn't bring the sword," she mumbled. "I'm sorry."

"Sorry? Faith, you could die from this." He should have been there to help – and then he remembered why he hadn't been, and realized why she apologized.

Slowly, he started unwrapping her makeshift bandage so he could reach the wound beneath.

"It's all right," he told her. "I'll help you."

"You shouldn't have to..." she started, and he didn't know if those were tears in her voice or if it was just lack of oxygen.

"Hey," he said. "Let me be the good sidekick here."

"You my Slayerette now?" she asked him, smiling slightly.

"Damned right, I am."

Compared to the patients at the hospital, treating Faith wasn't so bad. The wound was serious, and bleeding profusely, but at least it was just one wound and not a whole body full of illness.

"There," he said when he was definitely done. "Feeling better?"

"Lots," she replied, wrapping her arms around his neck. The color was starting to come back in her face already. "Forget the sidekick gig. You're my hero."

She had a wicked smile on her face, but her voice was serious, and when she leaned in to kiss him he could taste salt on her lips.

Her concern excited him, and he returned the kiss with fervour, pinning her against the wall. He was a patient man, and he particularly enjoyed taking his time with Faith, who was still a novice when it came to the more slow-moving aspects of sex. But slow and soft wasn't the same thing, and they both liked variation. A full scale of crescendos and diminuendoes, he'd told her once, and she gave him that blank look and "huh" that reminded him that despite everything she'd done, she was just a kid – and a kid who had gone to prison instead of college, no less.

He grabbed her wrists hard and teased her face with light kisses, the shadow of lips touching her skin.

"You wanna do it right here?" she asked him.

"Let's start 'doing it' here," he said, "and keep 'doing it' in every..." he followed the inside of her arm with his thumb "...single..." scratching her with his fingernails "...room."

"In front of the freakovamp and everything?"

"You got it," he said, releasing her and gently nudging her towards the living room door.

She raised an eyebrow. "Cool."

They had only reached the door to the bedroom when he felt himself soften. He drew back, bewildered. It couldn't be... not since his teen years... and with Faith of all people! But it was.

"What's wrong?" she asked, her voice husky and breathless.

"Nothing," he said firmly, returning his attention to her, using hands and mouth to make up for what was failing him.

Faith was no fool, though, and she'd have to be pretty oblivious not to notice what was going down, especially when she arched her hipbone, grinding it against him.

A puzzled frown flew over her face, and she drew back like he had a minute before. "You..."

"Shh," he said, and with a wry smile added, "There's more than one way to skin a cat."

"But you're..." Her eyes were widened with disbelief and horror. Hardly the most flattering situation in which he'd ever found himself. "It's my fault, isn't it?"

"Your fault?" He wouldn't have expected Faith to have insecurities about her performance.

As it turned out, that wasn't what she meant at all. "You healed me. Every time you do that, you go more... you know... worn."

It was true, and it frightened him, especially since he couldn't think of an alternative. Never dressing another wound? That wasn't a very realistic option, considering their lifestyle. And through the fear, he felt an increasing irritation that this moment should be ruined by actions he couldn't take back even if he tried.

"I'm not too worn to wear you out," he said, his lips touching her ear.

"What if it doesn't take a wound? What if just touching...?"

The thought made him freeze for a second, but once his brain had caught up with his fear, he shook his head. "Touching isn't enough."

"How do you know?"

"I know." He couldn't describe it to her, how differently his body reacted to her hot, smooth skin from when it was clammy and bleeding. He twirled strands of her hair around his fingers and tugged very slightly. "Trust me, I know."

Faith turned her head very slowly in his direction, a thoughtful expression on her face. "I want ice cream."

"Now? Instead of sex?"

"Yeah, instead of sex. Idiot. On you."

"Ah." He kissed her, and then replied, "I don't think I have any ice cream."

She gave a sharp, short laugh. "I should have known. You heathen!"

"I have maple syrup."

She thought about that. "Okay, it'll have to do. You're still a heathen, though."

"Don't I know it." He had to smile at her tone – she was still a teenager in some ways. Even so, he found it comforting to be called a heathen; it brought back memories of heated but friendly discussions in Crowley's kitchen. He had been an obnoxious, know-it-all boy, and Conchita had scoffed at him. Do you think the good Lord answers to you, Robin Wood? I thought he answered to everyone. Ha! He'd have his work cut out answering questions from silly little boys! Isn't the Lord supposed to be almighty, Conchita?

He suddenly found that he missed her, missed having someone around who believed in an almighty Lord who would set everything right. He certainly couldn't believe it himself.

He woke up in the middle of the night feeling like something was squeezing his heart. His initial, fearful thought was 'heart attack,' and then the rational part of his brain chimed in to tell him that 'anxiety attack' was a much more likely explanation, though he didn't know what would cause the anxiety. If he had dreamed something, he no longer remembered it.

He stumbled out of bed, barely able to stand and wondering why it felt like his head was on fire. Touching his scalp, it felt normal against his skin, though he was startled to see how gnarly and thin his hands looked in the moonlight.

The sensation of fire spread, dug in under his skin, aching and itching until it drove him crazy. He clawed at his skin, trying to rid himself of the feeling. Bugs, it had to be bugs, but what kind of bugs and how did you get rid of them? Maybe he could wash them away. He had to get to the bathroom.

His legs were shaking, and he wished desperately for Faith to wake up, but the weight on his chest made him breath in short, painful gasps and he couldn't find his voice.

Somehow he managed to make his way into the bathroom, where he climbed into the tub without even bothering to take his pajama pants off. Turning the water on, he let it stream down over his head and body, scrubbing and scrubbing until the water running down the drain had a tinge of pink.

It helped, though. The fire faded into an itch. His heart was racing, but at least that meant he could feel its beat.

He sat down in the tub, leaning his back against the wall and taking deep, shaky breaths. Okay. The worst was over. He could simply sit here, enjoy the warm water, and never move another inch in his life. It was just actually getting up from the bathtub that was unthinkable.

The next thing he knew, Faith was shaking him and yelling curses at him, some of him he didn't know the meaning of despite ten years of teaching high school.

"Calm down," he said. His voice sounded croaky and slurred to his ears, and he was shivering from the still-running water that had ceased to be warm. "And stop... ow!... stop banging my head against the tub."

She let go of him, but kept yelling, her voice so high-pitched it almost cracked. "I fucking knew something was wrong, you motherfucking piece of shit! But you just had to keep your head so far up your ass the shit came out through your mouth! 'Oh, never mind me, I get cursed by old Vikings every day!' And why the hell did you even touch that stupid cunt!"

"The only cunt I've been touching is yours," he said, trying to sit up. "And I'm not cursed."

"Oh, right," she said sarcastically. "And what the fuck is that?" She pointed towards his face. "Extreme Makeover: Backwards Edition, designed to make you look a hundred years old?"

The shivers were growing so badly that his teeth were clattering. "What are you talking about?"

For a moment, Faith only stared at him. Then she hauled him out of the tub and positioned him in the middle of the floor. He swayed, but managed to remain standing without grabbing hold of the basin.

Beyond the basin was the mirror door of the bathroom cabinet, and despite Faith's words, it took a while before his brain made the necessary connection between the face in it and his own.

"Jesus," he said, lifting a shaky hand to his face. The touch confirmed what his eyes were telling him – deep, leathery wrinkles that belonged to someone old enough to have seen both world wars. He took his hand down and gave it a good look while he was at it. If it had looked gnarly in moonlight, there was no doubt now to what it was: the hairy, withered hand of an old man. "It's sucking the life out of me."

"Still think you're not cursed?"

He shook his head slowly. 'Curse' seemed an adequate word for what had happened to him, but what kind of person cursed someone - a random someone - by making him a healer and then waiting to see how the gift saved others and killed himself? It was an absurd idea. Curses were... giving people smallpox or turning them into amphibies. Not this.

"It doesn't make any sense," he said.

"We're on a hellmouth," she said bitterly. "It doesn't have to make any sense."

The room started spinning in front of his eyes, and he grabbed the basin with both hands. "Faith..."

"I got you," she said, laying her arm around his back, and he hadn't heard her voice so soft since the destruction of Sunnydale. She couldn't have been any more obvious about the fact that she thought he was dying.

Well, she'd been wrong once before.

He leaned into her as she dragged him from the bathroom to the living room couch, where she proceeded to take his clothes off. He marvelled at the strength of a slayer, how her slim little body held more power than his own ever would. Any other day, that would be a challenge for him to match that power, teach her a thing or two. Today, he was both grateful and humiliated to find himself undressed and wrapped in a blanket like a baby.

Ella watched them with interest from her spot by the wall and commented with some glee, "He looks like death warmed over."

Having seen himself in the mirror, Robin had to admit that the spiteful statement held more truth than he would have liked. But considering that she was their prisoner, he couldn't very well blame her for being tactless.

"Shut up or I'll stake you right now!" Faith hissed, sounding so vicious Robin expected her to whip out a stake on the spot. Instead she sat down by his side on edge of the couch and asked, "Do you have the number of the archaeologist?"

"Hanlon? Yeah. But I don't know how much help he'll be. He's no expert on magic." Robin gave a breath of laughter. "He's not even much of an archaeologist."

"I figured," Faith said.

"You did?"

"Sure. People who're good at what they do don't usually steal from their bosses. Don't shit where you eat and all that."

"Quite," he said, closing his eyes.

"I'm gonna call him anyway, see if he know anything. Him and everyone else. Every god-damned slayer, watcher and Scooby in the entire universe, you see if I don't!"

He smiled. The end of the Council, even though Crowley hadn't been among the dead, had been a blow to him - an implication that there was no order to the world. He had never liked that order much, but it was still good to know that they weren't completely on their own anymore.

"Not the LAPD, though," he pleaded.

She sat quiet. So, she had intended to call them. Again. Robin felt a pang of sympathy for the no doubt overworked cops who must consider Faith a first-class stalker by now.

"If any of them are alive..." she started.

"If they are, they clearly don't want to be found. Please. When this is all over, you can start calling them again. But not right now. I just... I can't bear to listen."

She didn't reply. Maybe it wasn't fair of him to ask that she'd give up trying. But he really couldn't bear it if on top of everything else she'd be on the phone verbally abusing some poor Californian police officers because they couldn't deliver a miracle.

"All right," she said at long last. "I won't. I'll call everyone else I can think of, though."

"You'll get no argument from me," he said.

Faith made her calls all morning, but it was the middle of the afternoon before she got a callback. Robin wouldn't have expected it to be possible to jump while lying down, but when the signal sounded, he did. As for Faith, she came running in from the kitchen as if a Turok Han was after her, and threw herself on the phone.

When she hung up, she was looking both relieved and rather pensive.

"Not Giles," Robin guessed. "Willow?"

"Buffy," Faith said. "She's flying in from Rome."

That was certainly unexpected. Buffy had never shown an interest in Cleveland - on the contrary, she had made sure to keep an ocean between it and her. "That's good, isn't it?"

"I guess." Faith shrugged., chewing a little. After a while, she added, "Don't get me wrong, it'll be great having B here, but the thing is... she's a 'thinking on her feet' kind of gal. Great for battle, but for something like this..."

"We need a Watcher rather than a Slayer," Robin filled in. A thought struck him, and he was stunned that it had taken so long. "Call Crowley."

At first, Faith's expression was blank; then he saw recognition dawning in her face. "Your mom's..."

"481-516-2342."

"Huh?"

"That's his phone number." Good job, Robin, ranting off numbers like a maniac, without telling her what it was or giving her a chance to write them down or anything.

"Phone number. Right." She stuck her hand in her jeans pocket, and when she didn't find her cell phone there, looked around to see where she had left it. "481...?"

He repeated the phone number to her, a few numbers at a time, and then asked, "Do you want me to write it down?"

"Nah, it's okay. Slayer training."

"Right." It was funny, in a way; out of Buffy and Faith, Buffy was definitely the one who felt most like a Slayer, all her idiosyncrasies aside, but it was Faith who could do things like these, who had been drilled as a Slayer should. Robin's distinct impression was that Giles had taken one look at Buffy and then handed over the reins. Which in a way had proven a pretty good idea - Buffy might have made some terrible judgement calls, but as far as he knew, she'd never technically turned evil.

Still, Robin wouldn't have traded his Slayer girl for the world.

She was looking at him expectantly, and he realized that she had asked him a question.

"Sorry," he said. "You were saying?"

"Shouldn't you make the call? He's your family."

"Not sure I can make it into the kitchen."

"Cell phone," she pointed out, holding up the item in question.

"Oh." Since she looked ready to make another concerned comment on his fading health - the girl had no sense of tact - he started speaking to stop her, so fast he stumbled over the words. "Right. Forgot about that. Hand it over, I'll call him. It's been months since I last talked to the old man; I've been so busy with the hellmouth and the school."

When he finished speaking and reached for the phone, Faith had already dialled the number, and her fingers closed around his as he waited for Crowley to pick up.

The voice that met him was cheerful and Spanish, which first offset him and then made him smile. "Conchita? It's Robin. How are you?"

"Conchita doesn't work here anymore," the voice said. "I'm Ramona. Do you want her number?"

Didn't work there anymore? His hand started shaking so badly Faith had to take over the phone to stop it from slipping. What was going on with the world? He was losing his youth, maybe even his life, but some things were supposed to be constant, and that Beverly Hills kitchen was one of them.

"No, no that's okay," he said. "I'd like to speak to Bernard Crowley, is he present?"

He half expected her to say that Crowley had died, or joined a monastery, or moved to Peru, but instead she said, "one moment," and soon thereafter, he heard Crowley's voice, which still after all these years held a bit of New York in the vowels: "Robin?"

"Yeah," he said, faint with relief. "Hello, Crowley."

"It's good to hear from you, son. Is everything all right?"

"Not really." How could he tell Crowley what had happened? Should he start from the beginning, with the sword, or jump to the point – and beyond that, how could he bring himself to say the actual words? "That's why I'm calling. There seems to be a... well, a curse of some sort. I know that's not your area of expertise, but with the Watchers decimated, I figured..."

"Well, I'll help if I can, of course," Crowley said. "What do you..."

The rest of the sentence was muffled as Faith snatched the phone away from Robin, clearly dissatisfied with the way he was handling the conversation.

"Faith here," she said. "Listen, Robin's being all Joe Stoic about this, but he's really sick, and we don't know what to do about it. So if you could... yeah? Yeah. Okay." Her tight face softened a little. "Nice talking to you too."

She handed the phone back to him without another word, and he took it, bracing himself against the questions he knew would come.

Crowley had slipped into Watcher mode, offering only dry, clinical questions without comfort or pity, and for that, Robin was grateful. Robin recounted the details as close as he could remember them, and when he had told his story in full, there was a pause in the conversation. He didn't say, 'please come' or 'I need you. No 'help me.' Instead, the next words out of his mouth were accusatory: "Why did you fire Conchita?"

"I didn't. She retired, last June." Crowley didn't say, 'You would have known that if you'd called,' but Robin heard it never the less.

"Oh."

"I'll be on the next plane, and I'll bring everything I've got. Let's hope that's enough."

"You'll have to make connections in Chicago," he said. "Or New York, possibly."

"Any connection they have," Crowley promised. The Watcher was all gone from his voice now. "You hang in there."

Robin nodded, closing his eyes that were starting to fog. "I'll try."

"You're dying, aren't you?"

Robin turned his head towards Ella. Her eyes were sparkling, and her mouth curled up into a smile that showed a glimmer of her tiny front teeth.

"So it would seem," he said, and unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice now that Faith had left the room: "I take it you approve."

Her face hardened, making her look like a woman instead of the pouty adolescent she usually did. The change made him wonder how old she really was. Did vampires continue to grow old inside, so that her face no more showed her real age than his did, or was a once-young vampire stuck in a permanent state of immaturity? It wasn't something he had ever had reason to wonder before.

"You're murdering me," she said. "Am I supposed to mourn you?"

"I am not murdering you." Was she trying to get to him with that self-pitying attitude of hers? If so, it worked. "I'm willing to bet you'll live a considerably longer life than I will."

"A few decades, maybe," she spat out, as if the mere thought was an insult. "You humans have no concept of time. Maybe if you die, I'll go back to what I used to be."

"Maybe if I die, you never will."

"Then I'll at least get the pleasure of knowing you're rotting in hell."

He let his head fall back and closed his eyes, tired of whiny half-vampires, tired of this frail old body, tired of the whole Hellmouth. Things had been much easier when he had been killing off vampires one by one, his only mission to get to the one who had killed his mother.

Well, he'd found the right one, and look where that had gotten him. He'd failed to get his revenge, the damned vamp had died anyway - possibly twice - and now he was a dying old man of thirty-one.

He should have gotten out of the game while he had the chance. Or at the very least, he should have stuck to the find 'em, fight 'em, stake 'em approach.

"I wish I was murdering you," he muttered.

"Well, go ahead, then!" she jeered. "Grab a stake and do me in, get me out of this filthy human body!"

He didn't answer, though in his mind's eye he pictured himself doing just that.

"Oh, right, I forgot," she said, in a sweet, false voice. "You can't."

He could bear dying for those people in the hospital, and for Faith. But to die for this monster... God Almighty.

"I could make Faith do it," he pointed out.

"Make the Slayer fight your battles, how very brave."

"It's her job to get rid of creatures like you."

"No it isn't." Ella's voice had gone quiet, and Robin looked up, finding her eyes downcast. "There are no creatures like me."

He thought of Spike, and what people had told him of Angel. It wasn't the same. They had been full-strength vampires, with the capacity to murder and mutilate any human who came in their way. It was their urge to do so that had been compromised. Ella still had the urge; it was very clear to him that given the chance, she'd drink him dry and half of Cleveland along with him. But she couldn't.

He wondered if she had a soul now, Was she still a pure monster inside, raging at its impotence, or was she starting to feel the pull of a conscience and keeping up her soulless behaviour out of fear of what she might become?

You'd have to be Buffy to think that made a difference.

"I hate this," Ella said quietly, resting her chin on her knees. "I'm cold, and tired, and wet."

"That's humanity for... wet?"

"I don't know what happened."

Maybe that was true, but at least Robin had a pretty good idea. It seemed Ella had taken yet another step towards actual life, though hardly one she would enjoy.

He propped himself up on his elbow, but quickly realized that even if he managed to stand up, there was no way he could drag Ella into the bathroom without causing her to escape. Even in her weakened state, she was a lot stronger than he was right now.

"Faith!" he called. He could hear her rummaging about in the bedroom but it took a while before she arrived. Had she been listening to the radio again? He had told her she could bring it into the living room, or watch TV if she preferred, but it seemed she didn't want to disturb him or something.

When she appeared in the doorway, he told her, "Ella seems to have had a bit of an accident."

Faith scowled, measuring Ella with her eyes. "What kind of an accident?"

"The kind that would require you taking her into the bathroom, washing her off, and getting her some new clothes." Robin made an apologetic grimace and nodded towards the weapons cabinet. "Keys are in the bottom drawer. Sorry."

Faith's corresponding grimace was anything but apologetic. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me!" Despite her obvious distaste, she did go to the weapon cabinets and dug out the key. As she unlocked the manacles, she told Ella, "Piss on me, girl, and I'm gonna cut out your guts with a dull knife, I don't care what the cops say. Damn it, ain't there any books on how to housebreak a vampire?"

"I don't think the problem has even arisen before," Robin pointed out.

Faith scoffed. Hauling Ella out of the room, she told Robin, "If you need me..."

"I'll make sure to let you know before I went my pants," he said wryly.

She watched him as if she wasn't certain if he was joking or not. He really wished he had been.