Until It Sleeps: Chapter 8

AUTHOR'S NOTE: From here on in, I take enormous liberties with Faith's life. Enormous. Huge. I make assumptions, create scenarios, basically put my spin on how I think she grew up. I've tried to keep as true to what I know of the character through the episodes, but if I've stuffed something up, I apologise.

By no means am I saying that this is the be-all and end-all of Faith's life, that I'm right and everyone else is wrong. This one.. just works for this fic. There's a lot of...dark stuff suggested, so pretty much the rest of this I'm calling NC-17 or R.

Thanks

Tiz

Lying awake, watching the sunlight
How the birds would sing
As I count the rings around my eyes
Constantly pushing the world I know aside
I don't even feel the pain
I don't even want to try
I'm a Lonely Girl I'll tell a tale for you...

-Pink

In the hospital, Faith, having waited half an hour to be seen and concerned more than seventy per cent of the other casualties by her distinct lack of attention to the gash on her arm, now sat in on a guernsey in a little curtained-off cubicle in the ward. She stared blankly ahead as a doctor in his mid-twenties began the arduous process of cleaning the blood and debris from the larger wound, and the smaller scratches surrounding it.

The process took a good ten minutes, though to Faith it could have been ten seconds. The first time she gave any sign of non-catatonic life was when he finished, and stepped around to face her.

"I've cleaned the wound out," He said. Faith looked up. "There were a few fragments of rock in it." Pausing, he glanced back at the wound. "How did you say this happened again?"

"Got a little too close to.. An explosion." Faith answered carefully. Somehow, she didn't think telling him what was in her arm was the remnants of someone's gravestone would have gone down especially well.

The doctor nodded. "I'm going to need to put some stitches in. Have you had stitches before?"

Faith snorted. "You're obviously new here." Seeing his confused expression, she raised her hand in a silent apology. It had been years. "Yeah, I've had them."

"Good, so you know what to expect." He pulled his tray around to Faith's left side. "I'll just go and get the anaesthetic-"

"No drugs."

" is a fairly painful procedure Faith. The cut is deep, and-"

Faith looked at him sharply. "I know, I've had them before. I know what it feels like. I don't want any anaesthetic."

"O-kay." The doctor blinked, clearly taken aback. She watched him hovering, uncertain, around the tray of surgical equipment. Faith had to cut him some slack. The wound was ugly, and he was young. However, there was something about that picture that gave her a hint of satisfaction. After all, she could write a book titled `How to toss consummate professionals off their perch in 25 words or less'. In fact she was only a second away from suggesting he take the anaesthetic, when he nodded a second time. "Okay. It's important you don't move while I'm doing this, alright?"

Nice recovery.

"I know."

As the needle made its first puncture, and Faith squeezed her eyes shut and grit her teeth against the searing pain, she pulled up the image she had been waiting for.

Buffy. apologising to her. To her.

The fingers of her right hand dug into the mattress under her as the doctor came in for a second pass. At Faith's abrupt intake of breath he stopped, but she shook her head sharply.

"Don't. You Dare. Stop." She hissed.

She had always been the one to make the first move. Always been the one. She held the cards. She made the rules. She dictated the play. Since when was it up to Buffy? Since when did she have that right?

The needle dug in again.

FUCK!

Her cry echoed within the walls of her mind so loudly she wondered if perhaps the doctor could have heard it coming out her ears. What was this? The fucking rehabilitated slayer outreach program? What was she apologising for?

Unable to find purchase on her thoughts, Faith turned her attention to the pain. On each needle pass she let the fire of it flow through her - consume her - take up residence in her head and banish all other feeling from her body.

It made her feel at peace.

Hey, Kid! Get over here

Faith's eyes snapped open. "Huh..?"

"I'm sorry, did you say something?" The doctor asked, not taking his eyes off his work. Faith glanced up at him suspiciously.

"Did you?" The second word trailed off into a wince as he pulled in stitch number ten.

"No I said nothing." He pulled upward again. "Are you sure you don't want-"

"No!" Faith growled and turned away. "How many times do I have to tell you no!"

"Faith, I'm only trying to do my job here." He said gently.

Faith sighed and closed her eyes again. "My Bad. It's just... been a rough day."

Kid! Get the fuck over here!

What?

What, are you deaf?

"What the fuck?" Faith muttered, then turned on the doctor, ready to throttle him. "I thought I told you not to fucking give me-"

But the doctor was gone. With lightening speed her right hand darted to where her stitches should have been, but there was nothing there either. Lifting her arm revealed no marks, no blood, nothing. The skin was unbroken.

"What the fuck is going on?" Faith called out.

Instantly alert she pushed herself off the bed and swung open the curtain around it, raising her arms - ready to attack anyone and everyone that would come her way.

The only problem was, there wasn't anyone coming her way. Or going her way. Or. anyone anywhere, at all.

KID!

Faith blinked. The voice was coming from further down the emergency ward. She squinted down the rows of beds and, sure enough, right down the end was a bed surrounded by curtain, just as hers had been. Narrowing her eyes, Faith began jogging toward it.

Mom?

Faith growled and stepped up a gear. This wasn't fucking funny. This was beyond funny. Someone was going to pay with their balls.

I told you not to fucking call me that! Fucking hell, how many times do I have to tell you!

With a snarl Faith's hand reached for the fabric and tore it away from the rails. The blue material dropped away from her eyes to reveal.

The kitchen at her old house.

"What the fuck?" She hissed again.

Faith spun around, expecting to seen the emergency ward behind her, but found no trace of the hospital.

"But the teachers at school said-"

Faith's head snapped around at the sound of a child's voice.

Her heart stopped.

A woman in her twenties stood, towering over a small, dark-haired child who would have been no older than 6. The woman was holding a bottle of what looked like vodka in one hand, and a crumpled child's drawing in the other. She was unsteady on her feet, waving the picture in the child's face.

"No." Faith raised a hand to her mouth.

Faith!

Out of nowhere, a hand snaked around her waist and pulled her away.

"Hey!" She shouted, as she was pulled out of the cubicle. "HEY!" But the hand wouldn't let go, despite Faith's best efforts to duck out of it. Failing that she began to claw at the arm with both her hands, kicking and writhing in an attempt to break free.

"Get off me!" She hissed, trying to twist around to see who it was while at the same time becoming acutely aware of an increasing ache in her left arm.

"Faith! Hey!" The voice cut across her again.

"GET OFF ME!" She screamed.

The arm released her. Faith opened her eyes.

And saw Angel.

Faith blinked. It had been a dream, that's all. A nightmare. A fucking horrible, sadistic. hang on. Why was she asleep in the first place?

"You passed out."

Oh.

At that point, Faith noted that she was distinctly horizontal. Lifting her head she peered down at her feet, and saw the doctor standing with his back right up against the curtain, eyeing her carefully. Her head dropped back onto the pillow.

"You okay?"

She turned to Angel. wincing when she saw the scratch marks that cris-crossed his forearms. "Guess I owe you another apology, huh?"

One corner of Angel's mouth turned up in a lop-sided smile and he shook his head. "You'd think I would have learned by now, to wait until you wake on your own."

"Nah," Faith said casually, even as she waged an internal battle with her recollection, trying not to play out the scene she would have witnessed had Angel not woken her up in time. "Just throw a bucket of cold water on my face and step back. That's known to work." She winked. Almost as an afterthought Faith reached up and ran her fingers over her left arm, finding gauze and thicker strapping to hold it in place. Then, her face set in a grimace she sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed, nodding at the doctor. "Nice job, doc. Hardly feel a thing."

He stepped forward, cautiously, his eyes darting between Angel and Faith. "I've written a prescription for antibiotics." He held out the piece of paper and Angel took it from him, folding it up in his fingers. "You'll need to get it printed from the front desk."

"Thanks." He said.

The doctor continued. "You'll need to take one twice daily. They're strong, so make sure you have them with food. Once with breakfast, once with dinner. Don't take more than one, and expect to be a little queasy for a couple of days. And-" Nervously, the doctor fumbled in his coat pocket and pulled out a business card. He handed it to Angel as well. "-just. keep them in mind."

Angel looked down at the card, read it, frowned, then handed it back. "That's not necessary." He said.

"Look, a lot of people have raved about it. It has a very successful record. If you could just-"

"I said," Angel repeated, his voice teetering on threatening. "It isn't necessary."

"Right. Well." The doctor flicked both his eyebrows up in silent resignation and pulled the curtain open. "If you change your mind, just look up the hospital. They have it on record."

Angel's voice had returned to its normal, calming tone. He nodded. "Thanks for your help." Then he glanced at Faith, who was already on her feet, tilting her neck from side to side in an effort to alleviate some of the tension in her shoulders. "Buffy's waiting for us."

"Oh. Sure. Buffy. Yeah. Right." Faith muttered.

"So what was it?" She asked as they turned the corner from the emergency ward. "The number for a drug rehab place?"

Angel started and stared at her. "How did you know?"

"Like I said, been there, done that." Faith simply held up her hands. "The way he was looking at you and me? I reckon he thought you were my dealer."

Angel had to chuckle at that.

Faith flashed him a big smile. Not a grin, not a sneer, but a genuine, uninhibited smile. Angel relaxed into it, and once again he was reminded of how glad he was he had taken the time to fight for her. Everything he had seen since they had left that protective bubble of the car was so... Anti Faith. It was the `old' Faith. It was. a façade that he could see through in a second, yet was afraid she couldn't. The longer she stayed away from the person she had become, the more he had worried. Now he felt his worry ease, just a fraction. These brief moments he knew would remind her, at least unconsciously, that she was more.

Just like Faith, to bail herself out at the last minute.

Faith had managed to conceal the nightmare from Angel better than she even knew. Her reaction when she came to in the graveyard had been so similar to the one in the hospital that Angel didn't know the difference. She had no idea where the memory came from, why her mind felt it necessary to dredge those images out of the silt and flash them up in front of her eyes like a bright fucking neon Burger King sign.

Did it have something to do with that. thing? Faith shuddered at the memory of the graveyard, drawing a sideways glance from Angel.

"You okay?"

"Five by Five."

They rounded another corner, and almost immediately something floated gently across Faith's subconscious - something. vaguely comforting. With all the switching off she was doing, she didn't even see it coming. She'd definitely felt it before, but couldn't quite place it. It seeped into the cracks between her disjointed, agitated thoughts, calming her long enough to pull away from them.

Buffy, who had since returned to her seat, lifted her head. and turned towards the doors at the end of the hallway. She had felt. what had she felt? Discontinuity. Uncertainty. And a dark.. edge. that she knew instantly to be distinctly Faith.

Buffy lowered her head again, pressing her thumb and middle fingers to each temple as she began to grapple with some truths of her own. The connection that, despite them both, was slowly materialising back into existence was torturous. It brought with it feelings and an implicit trust in the other that was unavoidable. She couldn't explain it, any more than she could break away from it, but it was rooted so deep that only the deepest kind of hurt could result from it.

The deepest pain.

The war within Buffy spoke of that very pain - showed how that implicit trust had burned her. It threw up pictures of death, violence, fighting that had been the result of Faith. Faith's betrayal. Faith's evil. Another part of her showed pictures of her betrayal. Her inability to see what was in front of her. Her jealousy.

She rose from her seat, waiting, only seconds before Faith and Angel appeared through the doors. Faith had put her jacket back on, so her arm was concealed. Just like Faith - your enemy mustn't know your weaknesses. Buffy sighed.

No two people were so different than she and Faith.

And yet so fundamentally alike.

All that passion they exerted, all that fear they commanded. All the times they pushed the boundaries. One of them would have crossed it, eventually.

Buffy knew that.

As they approached Buffy could see Faith was troubled, though she was trying to fight it. She had that. crease between her eyebrows that only appeared when she was trying to stop thinking. Buffy remembered that look. She remembered it from the countless conversations after Alan Finch's death.

Damnit, why didn't she act on it then?

"Hey guys." Buffy said, wearily. "How did it go?"

Faith's expression was instantly replaced by a nonchalant smile. She shook a small white bottle in front of her face, which rattled in a very pill-reminiscent manner. "Druuugs." She waggled her eyebrows.

"Just some stitches, some antibiotics." Angel offered.

Buffy nodded, her eyes not leaving Faith's face. "How are you feeling?"

"Sane, actually." She answered lightly. "Well in control of all my faculties." She finished with a tilt of her head and a sweet smile. "I think it lucked out on me, B."

"Let's hope so." Buffy smiled slightly, an action that seemed to surprise the hell out of Faith who had to pretend to stare at something near the exit in order to hide her shock. Buffy looked up at Angel. "I've called a cab. It's waiting for us out the front."

"There's still a long time before dawn." Angel said. "You two go back, get some rest. I'm going to have look around and see what I can find."

Buffy shook her head. "Angel I don't think that's a good idea-"

"And I second that!" Faith interjected, staring at him incredulously.

"I can find out much more out there than I can in the house." Angel said. "There are enough people working on theory. There are places I can go that no website has access to. You know that." His last comment was directed at Buffy, who nodded slowly.

"Be careful." She said gently, then turned to Faith, who still glaring daggers into Angel's shoulder. "Come on, let's go." Buffy turned to go, paused, and turned back for a moment. "I won't bite."

"Yeah, but I might." Faith grunted. "Fox with the chickens, remember?"

This time, Buffy didn't turn to make her next comment, but she knew Faith heard it.

"I seem to remember fox with the hounds."