9:27 pm
June 1, 1999

Clarita Laidlow opened the door to her hotel room, only to find three people waiting for her. Her heart jumped for a moment before she recognized them, and she sighed as she closed the door behind her.

"A phone call to warn me you were coming would have been welcome."

The older of the men was standing with his hands in his pockets, a pensive smile tugging at his lips.

"Forgive us for startling you, Clarita. Our flight arrived less than an hour ago, and when we called the hospital you had already left." He gestured to the two people who were sitting silently on the couch. "James you already know," The trim black man flashed her a smile, using one finger to push his gold wire-frame glasses higher on his nose. "And this is Janice Reardon, one of our promising young recruits."

The woman stood and extended a hand, which Clarita took. Janice was a small woman, and she barely looked to be twenty. With her slender frame, pale skin and bright red hair, she could have looked cute, even pixyish. Her expression prevented that. Her face was a mask, showing no trace of her thoughts or emotions. Her eyes were strangely dark, given the coloring of her face and hair, with the iris so nearly black that it blended with her pupils to give her gaze a disconcerting alienness. She realized that it wasn't just the young woman's appearance that was disturbing her. There was a feeling that she exuded, an almost subliminal chill that she had felt before. Clarita took her hand back as quickly as she could without revealing her sudden unease.

"You're a sorceress?" Her voice had risen just a fraction, and she felt her face warm with embarrassment. Janice gave a minute nod, those eyes never leaving her, seeming to take in every detail. She didn't speak, and it was the older man who answered.

"Not just any sorceress, but one of the best I've ever seen. We're no longer relying on people who are born into families with a Watcher tradition, as you know. We've been actively searching for candidates who meet our needs, and who feel as we do, that the supernatural threats to humanity must be sought out and fought in a proactive fashion."

Clarita waved her hand in dismissal as she crossed the room and sat down in the overstuffed chair.

"I know all of that already. I agree with your move to change some of the outdated traditions, that's why I agreed to come here." She looked from one to the other. "I'm just surprised to see you, of all people, here in America. Wouldn't the other Elders think it odd that you traveled all the way here just to check on things? That's what people like James are for." She quirked an eyebrow at the other man to ease any offense he might take from her words, but he remained perfectly composed, at least on the surface. She knew him to be an extremely dangerous man when the need arose, but few would guess that from his normally tranquil demeanor.

Ian had smiled at her comment, using one large hand to smooth back his steel-gray hair.

"Perhaps they would find it strange. Doubtless they attribute my breaking of yet another convention to my 'recklessness and utter disrespect of tradition'. Meaning, on occasion I actually get off of my ass and do something, rather than letting one Watcher and his Slayer do the work of safeguarding human civilization." He frowned then, staring down at the carpeting. "Those fossils are why I've come, actually."

Clarita looked at him closely.

"Have they decided? Will they allow us to remove the Beta from here and take her back to England? She's stable enough now to bear the journey, if that's what you wanted to--"

He cut her off.

"No, that's not why I've come." He sighed heavily. "They've denied my request to take custody of her. They want her to remain here, 'until the situation becomes clearer'." He mimicked the quavering voice of a much older man, then looked at her, his pale blue eyes suddenly very serious. "I believe that they are afraid. Afraid that by bringing a Slayer to the Manor, they will themselves become a target. They are willing to fight the war from the sidelines, but they do not want to take the field themselves."

James spoke for the first time, his normally mellow voice now holding an edge of scorn.

"Sidelines my ass. They'd rather be in the nosebleed seats, or watching it live on the telly, from their easy chair at home."

Ian shrugged.

"Be that as it may, we do not have their permission to take her away. So she must remain here, in Sunnydale."

Clarita was struggling to gather her thoughts after this sudden change of their long-laid plans.

"But--She's helpless here, easy prey for any creature that wants an exotic meal!" She stood and paced across the room to the small bar. After pouring herself a stiff drink, she took a deep breath and turned again to face the others. "Frankly, I'm amazed she's gone this long without being attacked. Either the monster population of this area has been grossly exaggerated, or they're so terrified of her that they don't dare come near her even when she's in a coma."

The council Elder nodded in agreement, and indicated the young woman who still stood there, staring. Clarita suddenly wondered if Janice had blinked even once since they had been introduced.

"That's where our young sorceress comes in. She will accompany you to the hospital tomorrow and put protections in place to prevent any demon or vampire from ending our disobedient Slayer's life. Unfortunately, that will not stop anyone human, so we will need someone to remain here and keep an eye on her until we can locate her heir." His eyes were steady upon her, and she clutched her glass tightly as she realized what he was asking of her.

"Ian, no. Please, you can't mean that you want me to stay?"

"I'm afraid so. You are the only one of us who has the credentials to move freely about the hospital, and you can remain her physician of record, which will allow you to watch for any anomalies in her condition. If she shows any sign at all of recovery--"

The anger that had half-formed inside her turned to resignation. Still, she tried to argue her way free.

"I can't stay here indefinitely. I have a life back in England, my practice--"

"Will still be there waiting for you when you return." He stepped up to her and placed his hands on her shoulders. "We need you to do this; I need you to do it." He held her gaze with his own, and she felt the strength of his conviction reaching out to gently smother her last protests. "This is our one chance to seize control of a Slayer, to train her up in a way that isn't a dusty tradition that was archaic when gunpowder came to Europe. We can make the Watchers mean something again; we can break free of those fools who think of it as a country club with some quaint mythology behind it. But to do that we have to keep the girl safe until we know where the next Slayer in her line may be found. We're all counting on you, Clarita."

She didn't trust her voice, so she looked away and nodded silently.

* * * * *

Sounds tumbled over her. They had pattern, structure, meaning. She needed to wake up, this could be important.

Faith woke, but remained still. Her breathing never faltered, her face remained a mask, even when someone pried open her eyelid and shone a light into her eye. They were still a little messed up, and unless she concentrated, they didn't respond at all to the light. That was probably for the best, with guys like this peering into them all the time. She saw the brightness from his penlight, but her vision was unfocused. That meant that she couldn't really see the man who was examining her, but it didn't matter what he looked like. She listened to what he was saying, instead.

"Pupils are unequal and unreactive, which is consistent with axonal brain injury. She has been removed from the ventilator and is breathing on her own, which shows that there has been some adjustment and compensation. However, the patient has now been a vegetative state for thirteen days, and there is still no sign of cognitive function."

Faith mulled that over. Thirteen days? She had really misjudged the passage of time, then. Not that it mattered, much.

"Now, this is where it gets interesting. Look here."

The sheets were pulled away from her, and she felt cool air flow over her breasts, her stomach. She was naked, seemed like. She hoped the perv was getting a good look. His fingers prodded her belly, and fresh pain lanced from the wound there. It took most of her control to keep from backhanding him away from her. Well, and the fact that she didn't even know if she could manage that kind of move yet, let alone fight.

"See? This is what concerned us, after it was established that the head trauma was not going to interfere with her basic functions." More prodding, more pain. There was a rustling around her feet; someone coughed. There were several people standing down there, looking at her. She suppressed the urge to sigh. "The damage here was severe, but it was repairable. The surgical team did an excellent job with it. Now, it's typical for there to be drainage from this kind of wound, that's why we have the tubes in place. Abdominal injuries are prone to infection, and this patient had massive damage to several organs. Normally we would have to be very observant for signs that things were turning septic. However, as you can see, there no drainage, no sign of even the slightest infection, but the incision is not healing. In fact, there seems to be some necrosis of the surrounding tissue. No infection, no decay, but by any indication we can see, the flesh surrounding this wound is dead." He paused, and she supposed he was giving his audience some kind of knowing look. He sounded like the kind of person who would enjoy that. "Any ideas on what the cause of this could be?" There was an awkward silence, until finally someone cleared their throat.

"Um. Could it be a problem with her clotting factors? She could be anemic, and her healing so slow that it hasn't made any headway yet. Did anyone run a check on--"

"No, not clotting factors, not anemia." The man seemed happy to be able to slap down the woman who had spoken. "We did check, and her platelet count is excellent. A bit high, actually, and her hemoglobin is also high, incredibly so. Her rate of oxygen transport must be amazing." His tone became even more condescending. "And of course, if either of those had been the cause, then all of these other lacerations should also have been displaying similar problems, yes?"

More silence, then:

"Well, is she diabetic? That could prolong the healing process too, give the same sort of symptoms--"

"No, not diabetic, either." Yep, he enjoyed it. What an asshole. And he still had his hand on her stomach, which was really starting to piss her off. "The truth is, we're not sure what the problem was. We spent seven days putting blood into this girl--and she has the damnedest exotic blood type the lab boys have ever seen--only to see it drip back out of this wound. Her other injuries were showing signs of healing, but the tissue here--" He prodded her *again*. Dammit, did he WANT to hurt her? "--has simply refused to knit. There has been no sign of regeneration at all, and she was losing blood steadily. Until, that is, four days ago. At that point, something changed." His hand withdrew, and the sound of rustling paper came from just beside her. "She suddenly began running a temperature, which is currently at one-hundred and two degrees. Her pulse had been steady at thirty-two beats per minute, which is absurdly low, even for an athlete. However, as her fever developed, her pulse rate also increased, until it reached ninety per minute. Where it has remained, for the last four days. And as you can see--" That almost proprietary touch again. "There is no longer any bleeding. No healing, either, but at least she's no longer leaking like a sieve." She felt several of them leaning over to look.

He was right, sort of. She contemplated her body's condition, using internal senses that gave her a much better picture of what was going on than any instruments the doctors had available. Things could be better, but they could be a lot worse, too. She was fighting a battle against the damage the knife had done, and against the malignant power it had left inside her. The flesh around the wound wasn't really dead, but it wasn't very lively, either. She was sure that she would be able to drive out the icy magic soon, and after that her usual healing speed should kick in, but in the meantime she was having to claw for every inch of ground. She was going to win, eventually, but it was costing her.

"We're still not sure what caused the fever to flare up, since there has been no sign of infection. Despite all we can do, there's no clue we can find as to what is happening inside this girl; all of the cultures we've done have come back negative. Just to be safe, we've begun an aggressive course of intravenous antibiotics, but these have failed to have any effect."

True, except to give her yet more to deal with. She was having to divert much-needed resources to neutralize all the crap they were dumping into her. Speaking of which.... Ugh. So that's what that was. They had a whatchamacallit, a catheter, up inside her. There was probably a bag of pee hanging off the side of the bed. That was embarrassing in a way that mere nudity could never be.

"Dr. Lemay," A younger man this time. "Was she this underweight when she was admitted? I mean, I can count her ribs."

Faith could picture the frown on Lemay's face. How dare someone ask *him* a question?

"In fact, she has been on constant intravenous fluids, in an attempt to keep her hydrated, and since her GI tract was not injured, we have been feeding her via a stomach tube. True, she had been losing a bit of weight during the first week, but that's not uncommon for coma patients. It's only in the last day or two that we've seen this rapid decline, despite doubling up on the IV's and her caloric intake. I believe that the injury may have in some way damaged the portion of her brainstem that regulates her metabolism, causing it to accelerate to this abnormal level. Yet another mystery presented to us by this patient." Wow, he could really peg the pompous-meter, couldn't he? Finally he pulled the sheet back over her, and led the rest of them out into the hall, still going on and on about how much they had to learn. Faith stayed where she was, thinking. Her body naturally ran faster than a human being's; it had to. All the extra abilities that came with being a Slayer didn't come free of charge. If she were just lying here, she would probably be able to survive on what they were giving her through the tubes. But she wasn't just lying here. She was healing massive, nearly fatal injuries, and healing them with inhuman speed and thoroughness. That was why her temperature and heart rate were high; they were driving the repair systems at full-strength. But if she kept that up for much longer, she might succeed in starving herself to death. Which would kind of defeat the purpose of the whole process.

She had to slow things down. Looking inside herself again, she made up her mind. The minor things were half-healed anyway; what still needed to be done with them could wait. The big one in her gut was still practically untouched, and the knife's magic was weakening, but still resisting her every effort. That could not be ignored.

She began making the changes; throttling back her body's energies; shutting down everything that was not critical and diverting everything she could to deal with the stomach wound. Her pulse slowed abruptly, and her temperature began to fall. Maybe they would stop trying to 'cure' the infection if she were cooler. That would be helpful.

In the back of her mind, she was actually grateful for all the problems she had to deal with. It kept her occupied, kept her from thinking about what would happen to her now. About what she was going to do about Buffy. Because she was going to do something about Buffy, eventually.

Wasn't she?

Not something she had to worry about right now, that was certain. She finished the changes, and pulled back to watch for a while. It looked good, but it would be awhile before things got done this way. No big deal. She didn't have anywhere else she needed to be.

She relaxed, letting her mind follow her body down into the lower activity levels. This would be a longer one, she knew. It was actually sort of restful, all this quiet time. For so long she had been driven, every minute, every day. And it had only gotten her put here. It might be a good thing to just rest for a while.

She gave a gentle sigh, and slipped into the waiting darkness.

* * * * *