9:02 am
July 30, 1999

Clarita sat in the third floor lounge, staring at the stack of paperwork without really seeing it. July thirtieth. Over two months here, and no end in sight. Her exciting mission for the activist faction of the Council had turned into an interminable exile. Not that she was performing the duties that Ian had assigned her. It had been over a week since she had even been up to see the girl. She couldn't bear to look at her lying there, not when she knew the fate that awaited the comatose Slayer. Instead, she had thrown herself into the role of a visiting surgeon. The staff of Sunnydale general had been almost pathetically grateful for any help she could give them. For a town with such a serene appearance, there were an appalling number of violent crimes and serious injuries. Doing the work she had trained for, saving lives, helped Clarita Laidlow forget what was going to happen to the defenseless girl who slept upstairs.

She would have to go check on her after this shift, if only to ensure that those lazy nurses were taking proper care of her. She and the lazy cows had already had more than one shouting match over their failure to tend to Faith properly. If the child hadn't been a Slayer, she likely would have died from neglect by now. The traitorous thought entered her mind that perhaps such a death would be kinder than the one in store for the girl. Clarita brushed that aside. The death of one Slayer was required for the next to be called forth. Faith's death would serve the greater good, would ultimately save countless lives, perhaps the very world itself. Did the manner of that death really matter?

She concentrated on doing the paperwork, but the image of a sleeping, vulnerable face continued to haunt her.

* * * * *

Faith sat in the open window, staring out over Sunnydale, watching the rain fall. Her latest sleep period had only been a few days long; barely a nap, really. When she had awoke, she had again been forced to remove tube from her nose and the IV's from her arms. At least this time, the bleeding had been brief. Evidence, perhaps, that her Slayer healing powers were slowly recovering from their long struggle to keep her alive. Since she didn't want to stain anything in her weakened condition, she was keeping her physical abilities and metabolism throttled way back. Even so, she had been feeling almost energetic after getting out of bed this time, and had gone on a brief exploration of her new home. She had no clothes, so she had draped the covering sheet from her bed around her gaunt body, holding it shut in front with her hands. The hallway outside her room had an even dozen rooms opening off of it, and she had shuffled quietly from door to door, peering into each. Of the rooms, half were private, the others holding two beds apiece. All of the patients seemed to be like her; in comas, or near-enough not to matter. Several of them were very old, and had a lost, hopeless look to them. They impression they gave, that they were just being stored here until death came for them, had made Faith shiver, and move on quickly. Around the turning of the wide corridor was a nurse's station. When she eased her head around to look, she found it unattended. Puzzled at this, she had walked slowly past the elevators and down the other hall. More rooms, though all of these were doubles. Most of them, strangely, were occupied by children. Like the adult patients, all of them seemed bedridden and lethargic. At the far end of the second hallway she found a visitor's lounge, and, she supposed, the nurse that had been absent from the desk. The woman was sitting in one of the comfortable chairs with her back to the doorway, watching an infomercial on the large television. Faith had watched for a few moments, then shrugged and turned away. Lacking anything better to do, she had poked her head into the various closets and storage rooms. In one of them she had found stacks of old newspapers. She didn't know if they were being kept for some purpose, or if the staff was simply too lazy to throw them out, but she had quickly dropped to her knees and begun sorting through them. A brief search had yielded several dated from months earlier; just after graduation, and she had brought them back to her room to read.

Now, nearly an hour later, she sat perched on the windowsill. It was mid-morning, she had decided. The sun was invisible behind heavy grey clouds, but the traffic visible on nearby streets, and the activity of the people below, had a morning feel. Occasional drops of rain blew in to spatter her, and gusts of damp wind lifted her long hair, occasionally swirling strands of it across her face. She ignored it, staring outwards.

She remained there, unmoving, for a long time.

A sound penetrated her awareness, and she turned her head slowly. Across the dim room from her, the door to the hallway stood open. She cocked her head slightly, listening. Footsteps, coming closer. She considered her bed, knowing that she had plenty of time to lie down and play comatose, but she didn't move. She was not sure that she cared if someone found her up, anymore. And besides, the person approaching was not a nurse or doctor. Not unless they had graduated really, really early.

A small figure came into view, stopping in the doorway to stare at her. Faith stared back. It was the little girl she had met a few days earlier. If she had to guess, the Slayer would put the kid at five or six years old, though her eyes had a depth to them that made her seem older. She was wearing pink pajamas, with little Pokemon slippers on her feet. Her black hair made her skin seem even paler than it was, and her face was as gaunt as Faith's own. They looked at one another in silence for several seconds, and then the girl spoke.

"You're awake again."

Faith nodded gravely.

"Uh huh. So are you."

The child's eyes were solemn as she stared.

"You scared me, before. I thought you might be a monster or something. That's why I ran away."

The Slayer shrugged, turning her head to stare out of the window.

"Some people would tell you that I am a monster. That doesn't make it so. There's no reason for you to be scared of me."

Silence then, for a long minute. Eventually she heard the slippers scuffing across the floor towards her. She glanced over her shoulder to see the girl plop down on the floor next to the messy pile of newspapers. That small dark head moved back and forth, seeming to scan the various headlines. Faith wondered what she made of all the grainy images of a bombed-out school and a smiling Mayor Wilkens. The girl looked up and their eyes met. Any nervousness that had been there when she had come in the room was gone now.

"I don't know if you remember, but I'm Kira." The girl paused a moment, then tilted her head slightly. "Do sleeping people hear what people around them say? 'Cause I talk to them a lot, and I've always wondered."

Faith blinked.

"I don't know.... I remember hearing some stuff, but a lot of it didn't make any sense." She shifted position slightly, brushing her hair away from her face. "I'm Faith, by the way."

Kira nodded.

"I know."

She began gathering up the scattered newspapers that were strewn about. Faith watched as she stacked them neatly into a pile, then pushed them over next to Faith's dangling leg. The Slayer pulled the leg up, folding it underneath her on the windowsill. Kira looked up at her.

"Are you sad? You look like you are."

Faith nodded.

"Yeah. I guess I'm sad."

Kira tilted her head, staring up where Faith sat in the open window.

"Are you going to jump out the window and kill yourself? 'Cause sometimes people do that."

Faith stared at her for a moment, surprised despite herself. She answered slowly, careful of her words.

"No, I'm not going to kill myself." She was even pretty sure it was the truth. "Besides," A faint smile came to her lips. "I know for a fact that this isn't high enough to get the job done. Not for me, anyway." The girl nodded, accepting this.

"Everybody here is sad. At least, the ones who can wake up. And even the sleeping ones seem mostly sad, to me." She rubbed the tip of her nose, looking down at the floor. "This is the place where they send you when they don't want to have to see you, anymore."

Faith stared down at the top of the child's head.

"Huh? Why would someone not want to see you?"

Kira shrugged, still not looking up.

"I'm sick, and I'm gonna die. It makes my daddy sad to have to see me, and my new mom and her kids never liked me anyway. So they stopped coming to see me." She traced the lines of the floor tiles with a finger. "Except on weekends, sometimes, when they bring me stuff. But they don't stay long." She sighed. "It's okay. I don't mind." She raised her head and regarded Faith with eyes that seemed older than her years. "I saw that you don't have anything in your room. Don't your mommy and daddy at least come to bring you things?"

Faith looked into those eyes, an odd feeling making her throat tighten. She shook her head.

"No. My mom's been dead for a long time. My father...." She glanced down at the newspapers lying on the floor, and her vision blurred for a moment. Her voice dropped to a whisper. "My father would have come to see me, but he died a couple of months ago."

Kira looked up at her, sympathy filling her face. She started to reach out to touch Faith's leg, but pulled her hand back suddenly.

"I'm sorry. Did he get sick?"

Faith wiped her eyes, then shifted her position, hugging her legs to her chest and resting her cheek atop her knees.

"Nope. Someone killed him." She smiled a little at Kira's wide-eyed look. "My sister killed him."

"Wow." The girl pondered that, then shook her head wonderingly. "She sounds scary. Is she scary?"

The dark-haired Slayer nodded.

"She IS scary." Unconsciously, her hand went to her belly, fingers tracing the lines of the scar there. "Scarier than me."

Kira gave her a stern look that looked startlingly cute on her small face.

"You're not scary, Faith." She thought for a moment, then seemed to come to a decision. "I think you're nice." She spoke firmly, as if stating an undeniable truth.

Faith was surprised into a bitter laugh. She shook her head when Kira gave her another stern look.

"Thanks. But you only think that because you don't know me." She realized she was tracing the scar, and took her hand away, using it to push her blowing hair back from her face. She took a deep breath and looked out at the grey morning. "When I first got to this town, everybody thought I was cool. After a while though, I said something wrong, or did something wrong, and then no one would even talk to me. I guess I can't hide the real me for very long. When people see it they get gone in a hurry."

The little girl was leaning back against the side of the bed, her face scrunched up as she considered this.

"I don't think it's always the person's fault, when people leave them. Sometimes people are just like that." She seemed to be speaking from her own experience, and her voice was matter-of-fact when she continued. "Sometimes people get scared of you, or just don't want to do things with you anymore. It's not anything you did; not on purpose. Things just changed." She waggled her feet back and forth for a few seconds, then looked up at the Slayer. "You shouldn't let it bother you, Faith. If they forget about you, then you just forget about them back."

Faith was surprised into a little laugh.

"Gee, thanks Yoda." She raised one and clenched it into a fist, which elicited a couple of snaps and pops. "My preferred method of coping with my problems is to kill anybody who fu-uh, messes with me. As painfully as possible. You'd be amazed at how satisfying that can be."

The young girl gazed up at her with her old eyes.

"That's weird."

That prompted a rueful smile from the older girl.

"Well, yeah. I'm a weird person."

Kira nodded in agreement, watching her slippers as she tapped her feet together. A companionable silence followed. Faith glanced down at the paper she held, the one that listed those people who were dead or missing after the school was destroyed. Buffy had survived. All of them had, though the body count among the nobodies was respectable. Snyder had bought it, too. That was almost enough to make her smile. Almost. They had never found the Mayor's body, though they talked about large amounts of unidentifiable animal meat. She knew what that meant. If only she had been there. She would have checked the school, had planned to do it that morning.... If only.

"Faith? You wouldn't kill me, if I got you mad. Would you?"

She looked at the little girl, amazed at how calmly a kid so young could say things like that. Not scared or anything, and seeming like she knew exactly what they were talking about. It was hard to bullshit somebody like that, so she didn't try.

"Kira, I could kill anybody, if I had to. I've had a lot of practice, and it doesn't bother me." She sighed, thinking about it. "I could kill you, if there was a good reason. But I can't see how that could happen." She leaned her head back against the window frame, blinking when an errant raindrop struck her eye. "I think you're safe enough around me."

Kira seemed to accept that. At least she didn't jump up and run away screaming this time. Faith wouldn't have blamed her if she had done just that. The Slayer glanced outside once more, then straightened her legs, moving to carefully stand up. She got her feet under her, then leaned out to pull the window closed. The little girl had also stood, and stepped back as Faith walked the three steps to the bed. She paused.

"Sorry, I have to lie down now. I get tired fast, these days." Looking down at the girl, she frowned. "If you could, well, not tell anybody that you saw me awake and moving around, I'd appreciate it."

Kira nodded in understanding.

"You're not supposed to be up." She looked towards the hallway, where Faith's more-than-human hearing could detect the sound of a television two hallways away. "I'm not supposed to be up either."

Faith smiled in relief.

"Well then. I won't tell if you don't."

She reached out to tousle the girl's hair, but stopped when the child flinched back. Those huge eyes were held more sadness than anyone should have to bear.

"You don't want to touch me, Faith." She fidgeted uncomfortably. "Not unless you have gloves, and--" She made a waving gesture across her face. "One of those clear mask-things."

The Slayer sat slowly on the edge of the bed.

"Why not? Because you're sick? That doesn't bother me. I don't get sick."

The girl looked doubtful.

"I'm not just a little sick. I have AIDS. I caught it from my real mother when I was born, but they didn't know it until last year." She looked down. "So nobody touches me, or hugs me, or wants to be around me anymore. Cause they might get it, and then they would be going to die, too." Faith could see a little bit of why the kid acted like she did, now. It was still strange how matter-of-fact the little girl was about her condition, though. And it wasn't that she didn't understand what she was describing. It was plain in her eyes and her voice that she did, as much as anyone could understand their approaching death. This child was braver than she would be, braver than she had been, when she had looked Death in the eye. It was hard, but Faith managed a faint smile as she reached out slowly, so as not to frighten her. She ran her fingers down the side of that small face, then tapped her lightly on the tip of her nose.

"Like I said; I'm not afraid of catching anything, Kira. There's only one thing in the world that scares me, and she's not here." The child stood still, looking uncertain of how to respond. Finally, she reached up carefully and touched Faith's hand with both of hers. The older girl gave her a reassuring smile, then closed her fingers around Kira's and gave them a gentle squeeze. "See? Now take off." She looked away from the wonder on the little girl's face and lay back on the bed, wriggling around a little to get comfortable. "I have to get a little more sleep, now." She turned her head to look at the girl. "Thanks for not running away this time. It was nice, having someone to talk to besides myself. I've been doing too much of that."

Kira was standing beside her, which put their faces close to the same level. Her voice was hushed, like she was already trying to keep from waking someone.

"You only had yourself to talk to while you were sleeping?"

Faith shook her head slightly. Her eyelids were getting heavy.

"No, before that. Empty rooms and me go way back. See you later."

Kira gave her a little smile that seemed to light up her whole face.

"You're welcome. Can I come see you when you wake up again?"

Faith nodded.

"Yeah, I'd like that."

The girl walked around the bed and to the doorway, out of her line of sight, but she could feel her standing there, watching, until the heavy darkness came and carried her away.

* * * * *