Loss of Faith

Chapter 24: Missing In Action

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the recognizable characters contained within.

That would be Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, etc….

Xander's POV –

The ambulance pulled into the hospital emergency room entrance and screeched to a stop. The back doors flew open and the paramedics pulled the gurney Faith was on out and rushed her inside. I scrambled to keep up, but was stopped as I tried to follow Faith into the room where a group of people in scrubs were already working on her. "I need to get in there," I said to the woman who stopped me. I think she might have been one of the nurses, but didn't really care who she was. I just wanted to be with Faith. I had gotten the idea in my head that if I wasn't right with her every minute, somehow she wouldn't make it. Not that there was anything I could do for her. It was just a feeling and I've learned to trust my feelings.

"It's alright, we'll take good care of her," the woman in front of me was saying. It took me a moment to realize she was even speaking to me. When I did, I looked at her for the first time. She was a small brown haired older woman, dressed in a white uniform and wearing a flower covered smock. She took me by the arm and led me over to the side of the room to a small desk. "I need to get some information from you. Once they have her stabilized I'm sure you'll be allowed to see her," she said to me with a small smile.

I reached up and ran a hand through my hair as I blew out a long breath. Yea, she was right. I didn't like it, but I knew they wouldn't let me stay in the room with her. I couldn't stop my eyes from constantly looking at the door they took Faith through. Almost like I if I kept watching, Faith would come bouncing out of the door with her shit eating grin in place and tell me it was just a joke.

"Now young man," the nurse, receptionist, whatever, told me. "I need you to answer some questions if you can. What is the young ladies name?" she asked while pulling a clipboard of forms in front of her.

"Faith," I answer not really thinking about it. "Faith Lehane."

"Okay, and can you tell me what happened to Faith," she asked next.

Here's where it's going to get tricky. "We were at Faith's house and she was in the next room. We heard a crash and when we went in we found her laying on the floor. We called an ambulance and you guy's showed up." Short and sweet. If I try and give too many details I know this will take all night.

"Do you know if Faith has any insurance?" She asks next. I give her a look like she's crazy.

"Lady, you've got to be kidding me," I yell at her. "Faith's in there fighting for her life and you're worried about if she has insurance? No, I don't know if she has insurance. In fact, I really don't give a damn if she does or not. But don't worry, I know she has enough money to cover the bill, so why don't you just leave me alone and go do something useful like finding out if she's going to make it or not." I know it's not this woman's fault and that I shouldn't be taking it out on her that I'm worried, but I am really not in the mood to play paperwork games right now.

"Yes, well," she says in a soft voice, "We can take care of this later. I'll see what I can find out for you." Great, now I feel like a creep for hollering at her.

I lower my voice and say quietly, "Thank you and I'm sorry. I'm a little upset right now. I would appreciate anything you could find out for me though." I give her my best grin for good measure and she smiles back so I think she may understand.

As she moves off to find out about Faith, the doors open behind me and Giles, Willow and Shannon come in. We all move over to the waiting area and Giles asks, "Is there any word yet? How is she?"

"They took her in a little while ago and the nurse just went to find out what she could for me," I say.

Willow and Shannon are standing close to each other and Will speaks up, "I'm sure she'll be alright, Xand. Faith has been through some tough spots before and she always comes through."

What I want to say is that she wouldn't be trying to stay alive right now if it wasn't for Will's new buddy, but I can see she's really upset and me snapping at her isn't going to help Faith any. So instead I just say, "Yea, she's tough alright." Then looking right at Shannon I can't help but add, "She would claw her way back from Hell to be with Buffy, so I'm sure a little blood loss won't keep her down."

Shannon surprises me by not saying anything. She just looks down at the floor and if I didn't know her better I would say she was feeling guilty. She should feel guilty. I just hope we have some good news before Buff gets here or Shannon's going to be feeling something more than just guilt. She'll be feeling a very pissed off slayer's fist.

A few minutes later the nurse who was asking me questions about Faith came back. She walks up to me and looks around briefly at the others. "You're friend has lost a lot of blood," she says. I can feel everyone bracing themselves for bad news. Then the nurse continues, "They were able to get the wound on her neck dressed, but it actually didn't seem to be bad enough to cause the loss of blood she experienced. However, the paramedics' treatment on the way here seems to have helped stabilize her and after she gets her red cell count back up she should be fine."

You can feel the tension in the room deflate as everyone lets out a sigh of relief. Willow and Giles are smiling at each other, and then Willow turns and gives Shannon a hug. I just slump back against the wall and close my eyes. When I open them I tell the nurse that brought us such good news, "Thank you. When do you think we can see her?"

"They're finishing up now and then she'll be moved down the hall to a room for recovery. I'd say in about a half hour you should be able to visit for a little while, but I must warn you, she hasn't regained consciousness yet. We are going to keep her overnight for observation if she doesn't wake up soon, but if she does, she should be able to be discharged tomorrow," she tells me. And again I feel bad for yelling at her earlier, I mean, come on, she was just trying to do her job, right?

We thank her for her help and as she goes back down the hallway the doors open again. Joyce and Buffy come through them with Buffy almost running over to us.

"Where is she?" Buff asks. She has a slightly panicked look in her eyes and under that you can see the guilt she is feeling.

"It's okay, Buff," I tell her. "They have Faith in a treatment room and the nurse just told us she's stabile. We should be able to see her soon."

Buffy slumps forward against me and I hold her as I feel some of the tension leave her body. "That's great Xand," She says. She pulls away from me and looks over to Joyce with a little smile. Joyce has gone to stand next to Giles and they're speaking quietly to each other. Shannon and Willow are still standing together and Shannon is watching Buffy like she's a mouse and Buffy is a hungry cat.

As Buffy's eyes scan over our little group, I can see the change in them as her gaze settles on Shannon and the look she is giving the younger slayer is not one meant to reassure. Shannon takes an involuntary step back and kinda pulls Willow with her. Buffy must realize that she's freaking out the newbie and turns to look at me again.

"How could I have done that to her?" She asks me in a quiet voice. It's almost like she's talking to herself, but I have to answer her. There's no way I can let her start getting wrapped up in a guilt trip over this. Faith is going to need her now and they've both been through too much to have to start over.

I put my arms back around her as I tell her, "Buff, Faith made the decision to save you. There was no way she was going to lose you after just getting you back. The only cure for the poison was a slayers blood and she trusted you enough to stop before you took too much."

"I almost didn't stop," she whispers.

"But you did," I tell her. "Trust me, I know that there's no way that you would ever intentionally hurt Faith. You love her too much."

Willow comes over and puts a hand on Buffy's shoulder. "Buff?" she says. When Buffy turned to her, Willow's arms wrapped around her and squeezed in a big hug. It's a good thing Buff has slayer, not to mention vampire, strength or I think Willow would have broken a couple of her ribs. "It's so good to see you," Willow says. She's got her eyes closed and small tears are running down her face. "When they told me you were back I didn't know what to think. I thought they were crazy, now here you are and I think I'm the crazy one. I felt so bad when I found out the ensouling spell didn't work and you died again, but now your back, you didn't die, and the spell actually worked, and you've been taking care of Sunnydale, and doing it all alone, and now your back, and we know, and we can help, and it'll be like before……and……and….. I missed you so much!" Will's babble finally trails off as she runs out of breath.

Will takes a step back from Buff and looks over to Shannon then says, "This is Shannon, uh, I guess you guys have sorta already met, but she didn't know you were a good guy."

"Yea, we've met," Buff says coldly. After what Shannon has put Buff through, Will can't really expect them to be best buds.

A different nurse comes over then and says to me, "Your friend is awake, but she's still weak. We've moved her down to room 122 and you can see her now. Only two of you at a time though."

Joyce comes over to stand next to Buffy and I tell them, "Why don't you guys go check on her? I'll go in after you're done, okay?"

Buffy gives me a quick hug along with a thankful smile then holds Joyce's hand as they move off down the hallway. Willow is looking at me kind of funny so I ask her, "What? Do I have something stuck on my face?"

"No," she says, "You just look so sad. Faith is going to be alright. What's wrong?"

I shake my head at her and say, "Faith is going to live, but I doubt that she'll be alright. With that stupid 'no happiness allowed' part of the curse, Buff and Faith will never be alright. There's has to be a way around it."

"Well," Willow says and her brow is wrinkled up as she thinks, "If I can find a way to anchor Buffy's conscience to her body, you know, kinda of make it impervious to being ripped away, that might work. But I would need some kind of magic artifact that's tuned to vampires."

"I might be able to help you there," Shannon walks over and speaks for the first time. She's looking at the ground when she says, "I took the gem of Amara from Buffy when I………..when I last saw her," she finishes. "I was going to send it back to my Uncle, but if you think you can use it to help keep her soul intact, I will give it to you."

Will's eyes light up and she smiles at Shannon, "That would be perfect."

Giles who was standing there listening to the conversation says, "Yes. That would certainly work. The gems original purpose was to protect a vampire from any sort of physical attack. There is no reason it couldn't be used to protect Buffy from spiritual attacks as well."

I'm starting to get my hopes up. If anyone can find a way to make this work it would be Giles and Will. I say to them, "Can you guys go get started on that? It would be great if when I see Faith I could give her some good news."

"We can stop and get what we need, then work on it at Faith's place," Will says. "There's lots of room there and we won't be interrupted."

Giles nods and leads Willow and Shannon to the doors. I look up to see Buffy and Joyce rushing over to the nurses' station with worried looks on their faces. I go over to see what the problem is and get there in time to hear Buff say, "Yes I'm sure. We were told she was in room 122 and there's no one there! Can you please check again."

The woman behind the desk says, "Just a moment while I look her up in the computer." Then she starts tapping keys. "I'm sorry," she tells us, "It says here that the patient was transferred to another facility. They must have taken her right after she was released from the treatment room."

Joyce says in a tight voice, "Transferred to where? Who authorized her to be moved?"

The woman behind the desk is looking a little nervous and I don't blame her since she's faced with two very upset Summers women. "It only says that she was transferred to a private facility. The transfer orders were faxed in from a Dr. Travers," she tells us.

Buffy's lips are set in a tight line as she heads straight for the door. Joyce and I hurry to catch up to her. The Council doesn't know it yet, but it just started a war.