They were still somewhere in California and had switched drivers three times before it became necessary to stop for the day. At some point in time that could not be determined, Robin had taken a turn for the worse, perhaps even sooner; to Faith's shock and growing, discomforting guilt, everyone seemed to have assumed, after she herself had checked him immediately after the battle, that having got himself on the bus, he was merely quiet or sleeping, rather than seriously injured. Faith herself had assumed; how else could he have summoned the humor and energy to surprise her with his sudden "resurrection?"

But Andrew, of all people, nosy and intrusive as he was, had been the first to notice when he addressed Robin with some complaint about Kennedy. When he received no signs of acknowledgement from Robin, nor did the man awaken when Andrew leaned forward in his seat to shake his shoulder, Andrew had panicked, shouting in the high-pitched voice that had annoyed Faith on so many occasions.

"He's dead, oh my god, Robin died! I thought we were done with the dying, but it's followed us, it will never let us go!"

Of course, once the panicked intial flurry of the Potentials (now actual Slayers, but that Faith was pretty sure they'd always be Potentials in her own head) had died down and someone (Willow) had gone to check for herself, it had been determined that Robin was in fact not dead, but rather unconscious, and probably had been for some time. The focus then had become locating the closest hospital, getting his large and rather heavy frame inside the emergency doors, and explaining away both his stabbed, unconscious condition and the dirty, rather bloodied condition of all abundance of young girls and three men accompanying him. Xander and Giles had been deigned as the ones to struggle to get him into the hospital on their own; although any of the Slayers could have easily carried him, they were attracting quite enough attention as it was without a girl in her teens or early twenties and not cracking the 110 pound marker carrying a man almost twice her size and weight.

It was decided by hospital staff pretty quickly that Robin would need to be checked in for the night, and in fact was in serious enough condition to be taken into intensive care. Although Buffy had the most serious injury after Robin's, she had refused when Faith, Willow, and Giles all separately advised her to get it checked out, each time covering her side protectively as though to hide it from their view.

"I'm fine," she had insisted, and Faith had looked for the uplifting of her chin, the stubborn steeliness she was accustomed to, and been further concerned when she did not see it. "Slayer healing. They should focus on Robin, not me."

In the end, when one of the girls had heard hospital staff start talking about notifying the police and possibly child welfare, they had all rushed out about as quickly and inobtrusively as twelve people driving a school bus were capable of. Faith had done a head count both boarding and reboarding the bus, determining just who of everyone had survived, and the list was pathetically small. Herself, Buffy, Xander, Willow, Willow's girl Kennedy, Vi, Rona, Shannon, Cha-Ahn, Giles, Dawn, and inexplicably, Andrew, along with Robin Wood. Considering how many people had once been packed into Buffy's house, the death toll had been extreme.

And she couldn't be so sure that Robin Wood wouldn't be soon to join them. Why the fuck hadn't she checked on him sooner?

88

The group found and checked into a fairly sketchy-looking motel room not more than a few miles from the hospital. Giles had said that they may have been able to afford a pricier arrangement, but they couldn't guarantee that the staff or those staying there would be as likely to turn a blind eye to people of their number and description showing up and wanting to stay for an undetermined amount of time without some kind of questions and suspicions. The motel was off the main road enough that the rather conspicuous school bus parked at its side may go unnoticed, and out of the eight rooms the place boasted, six of them were vacant, just enough for the twelve to each have a room to share with one other person.

The pair-ups happened quickly, and with such automatic nature that Faith quickly felt out of the loop and somewhat lost. Kennedy and Willow, Vi and Rona, Xander and Giles, Shannon and Chao-Ahn naturally drew together. That left four people with two rooms, and when Faith saw who was her likely partner, she put her hands out in front of her in automatic protest at Andrew's overly eager response.

"Oh, hell no, this is so not happening. I'm not about to spend my night with Candid Camera Ken doll."

She looked over at Xander and Giles, as the only other available males, for back up, and possible offers of a trade. She'd take a room with Xander over freakin' Andrew any day, hell, she'd take one with Giles, weird as that might be. But neither man showed any sign of wanting to step up to the task, not that she could blame him.

Andrew pouted, crossing his arms over his chest, and looked to the other men as well. "Well, I'm just a little bit anxious that Faith might kill me in her sleep, because she does have a history of stealing my food, and the last time she threatened me, I'm pretty sure she was seriously, like, making a plan of action complete with maps, so if we're all going to share, I'm just going to stake a claim now for the bed with Xander, because Giles snores."

"I do not snore," Giles protested, simultaneous with Xander's hurried exclamation.

"I kind of have strict sleeping requirements, and one of those is that I do NOT share a bed with other guys. Well, there was that one time, but that was kind of an exception, and anyway-"

"Oh, this is so stupid," Dawn interrupted, rolling her eyes and sighing loudly, seemingly completely exasperated with the older group's antics. "I'll share with Andrew, if it's such a big deal to everyone. If I survived the apocalypse, I'll survive that."

She narrowed her eyes at Andrew, fixing him with a rather scary expression that Faith immediately noted must be genetic among the Summers women.

"Don't even think about any perving around, though. You stay on your side of the room, and I stay on mine. Just remember that I can totally kick your ass if I have to."

"O-okay," Andrew breathed, his face twitching slightly. "Got it."

As Faith slowly worked out just what this arrangement meant, Dawn turned to her sister, who had been standing silently, arms crossed over her chest, observing but possibly not registering this exchange. She touched her shoulder, addressing her softly.

"Is that okay with you, Buffy? If you really want me to stay with you tonight…"

Faith tensed, assuming at first that the younger girl was implying that Buffy would clearly not be okay with sharing a room with Faith, out of all the others. Hell, Faith herself assumed that. But when Dawn didn't even glance towards her, focused on Buffy, she let herself consider another possibly, that the younger Summers woman simply wanted to make sure that Buffy didn't just want or need to be with her sister after everything. Maybe it was possible, that Dawn, along with everyone else, really had come around that much in regards to Faith.

Faith waited for Buffy to shake her head, telling Dawn to stay with her, which would obviously mean she'd have to bully or command one of the potentials into sharing with Andrew instead. But Buffy shrugged instead, seeming completely apathetic to Dawn's decision.

"I'm fine, Dawn. It's fine."

Dawn nodded, giving Buffy a smile that Faith noted was much more genuine than those her sister had been showing. When she leaned in to hug Buffy, Buffy's arms came up slowly to hug her back, and her embrace was brief, without force.

"I'll see you in the morning, then, okay? I love you."

"I love you," Buffy replied, but the words seemed automatic, lacking emotion in their tone. Her arms immediately recrossed when her sister pulled back, and didn't come down again as Faith came forward.

"Looks like it's you and me then, B," she commented, and Buffy nodded, giving no verbal response. Faith let out a sigh under her breath, then, raising up the room key for Buffy to see, nodded towards the battered door corresponding.

"Here we are, then. Back to living the high life."

The setting was all too familiar to Faith. She had lived in shabby, rather grim motels when she first came to Sunnydale, and that hadn't been something she was unaccustomed to even then. Growing up in Boston with two alcoholic parents, she had quickly grown used to shuttling between crappy apartments and motel rooms every time her parents skimped on rent for one month too many and got themselves evicted, again. She was used to drab, peeling wallpaper, furniture with initials and swear words gouged into their surfaces, and sheets you had to check for suspicious stains before being brave enough to settle under them. Mold in the shower, bugs under the bed, and overly squashy or overly hard mattresses were par for course, and in fact, a step up from the prison life she had bore out for the past three years.

But the Buffy she remembered definitely wasn't. Her bedroom had changed from the little-girl knick knacks and décor from their teenaged years, and Faith had only spent a very limited amount of time in it, most of it while unconscious. Still, she'd been there and in Buffy's house enough to know that Buffy was very used to clean and tastefully arranged rooms, to comfortable bedding and bathrooms that could be counted on to properly work. It was years back, but she hadn't missed then and still remembered now the looks of pity and unsuccessfully smothered shock, each time Buffy visited Faith's motel dwellings.

This motel was as expected- beaten, stained carpet that Faith noted was not something she wanted to walk on in bare feet, badly weathered paint on the walls, a television at least twenty years old, and a bathroom door partly open, since it was half hanging on its hinges. But what she hadn't expected was the single queen sized bed, directly in the center of the room. Then again, this kind of joint was likely most often paid for by the hour rather than the night. It wasn't like they had the need to invest in two beds, for most of its customers.

Faith sighed inwardly, waiting for Buffy's reaction not just to the bed, but to the room itself. But the other woman gave no indication that she found the room or the arrangements not to her personal taste. She just dropped herself on the edge of the bed, the mattress dipping slightly under her weight, and rolled her shoulders, attempting to ease muscles that were no down drawn tight.

So, Buffy had already claimed the bed. Faith hadn't expected otherwise, but still, it sucked to think of sleeping on the floor. Somehow she doubted a place like this had any cots stored away for guest usage. Her muscles were actually twitching occasionally with the need for rest, and it seemed forever since she had had guaranteed access to a bed, no matter how shitty, rather than a place somewhere on the floor of Buffy's house. More floor time with far worse blankets for the night was gonna suck. Still, it was better than sleeping on a bus, and way better than sleeping with fucking Andrew.

"I'm guessing you're gonna want the bed, right?" Faith went ahead to get the claim over with and spoken for, nodding towards Buffy in her seated position.

She expected Buffy to nod, at the very least, maybe to come up with a snarky reply of some kind. But so far, none of her expectations of Buffy today had come through. The other girl just looked up at her somewhat blankly, her brow furrowed. She didn't seem to have heard what Faith had said.

"Huh?"

Taking a step forward, Faith pointed her chin in the direction first of the bed's headboard, then towards Buffy, crossing her arms over her shoulders with sudden self-consciousness of what she was saying. Fuck if she knew why she felt it. Something about Buffy's lack of predictability today, of her lack of being…Buffy…was just unsettling.

"There's only one bed," Faith spelled out to her. "One bed, two of us. From what I remember, you're not all that big on the sharing when it comes to me. And you sat on it first. So I'm guessing you're staking your claim."

Faith could see the far-off look in Buffy's eyes fade, her pupils coming back into focus as she looked back at Faith. Her eyes narrowed, and she sat up a little straighter, a hint of the prideful, irritated Buffy that she was more accustomed to coming back into her mannerisms as she responded.

"The girl you remember is not the girl I am now," she said, her voice measured, almost flat. "I'm not even the girl I was two days ago, so don't go by memories of ancient history when it comes to your perception of me."

She sighed, the tension in her face easing just slightly.

"I'm tired, Faith. Aren't you?"

She seemed to be asking two questions at once, and Faith was not oblivious to this. It wasn't just a physical need for rest that Buffy was talking about, but something deeper, a tiredness that she carried inside, to her core.

Faith hesitated, then gave a slow nod in answer. She was, sometimes, though not nearly as often or as desperately as she had once been. Sometimes, now, she felt that she was finally waking up from that overwhelming inner weariness of life, that she was beginning not just to distantly hope for some kind of future, but to fight for one, to believe it could really happen.

But Buffy hadn't asked for an explanation from her, and she hadn't offered one. That, nor a denial from Faith, didn't seem to be what she needed. So Faith nodded, as much to show an understanding of what Buffy was saying as because it was true.

"Yeah," she said, exhaling. "Yeah, of course. I just figured-"

"We're both tired," Buffy interrupted her, lifting her chin with something like defiance in the gesture. "We're grown women, and things are different now than they've ever been before. I think we can both share a bed for one night without shedding any blood or having bullshit drama over it by now."

Faith blinked, taken aback not so much by the words, but at the casual use of "bullshit" that Buffy had thrown into them. The Buffy she was used to was far too uptight for cursing. Her respect for Buffy, already high, raised up a notch as she nodded again, accepting.

"Yeah, all right. Got it."

When Buffy said nothing further, seeming to see the matter as now closed, Faith cleared her throat, jerking her head towards the bathroom door a bit awkwardly.

"You can have first shower if you want. I'm not gonna place any bets on hot water, and you're gonna pick up athlete's foot from the tub surface, more likely than not, but hey, Slayer healing works fast, right?"

She didn't expect a laugh or a smile, not at this point. Still, it bothered her when Buffy just nodded, hauling herself up from the bed and shuffling towards the uneven bathroom door. Faith tried to determine if she were limping or showing pain from the stab wound, but if Buffy was hurting, she was skilled at hiding it.

It surprised her when Buffy didn't try to shut the bathroom door, just dropped her filthy clothes in a heap beside it without bothering to check that Faith wasn't looking in her direction. Faith couldn't say she wasn't tempted to sneak a peek- to check out the physical damage Buffy's body had taken on, over the past few years, and to get a look at any other changes as well for more personal reasons than injury checking. But at the thought of Buffy's reaction, if she were to get caught, she averted her eyes, instead sitting cross-legged on the squashy bed's blanket and flicking on the TV.

Periodically Faith glanced towards the open bathroom door, unable to resist her urge to monitor Buffy. Not out of any kind of creepy perve reason- four or five years ago, maybe, but she was past that now. The First had been right about a thing or two, her desire for Buffy to love her being one of the most uncomfortable ones. Back then, it had been a driving force for a lot of things she did, a wish bordering on desperate and definitely not one that was ever going to have the sort of results she hoped for. Buffy had that effect on people, dead and undead, and Faith had been just one of the victims- and the one Buffy had seemed most oblivious to, when it came to the effects she had on her.

But that was then. Faith had come to terms with a few things, Buffy and whatever futile draw towards her she had being one of them. It was never gonna happen then, and there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell it would happen now. Faith herself couldn't say she'd go with it, even if Buffy got brain damaged enough to actually make an offer. There was far too much she could lose out of that, and far too much damage to what bit of self esteem she'd managed to scrape together. If Buffy would actually go for that kind of thing, there was no way she wouldn't be picturing someone else in place of Faith, and Faith was finally, sort of, starting to recognize, and actually try to avoid, situations where she was being used.

No, the whole monitor-Buffy instinct was coming from the way Buffy had been behaving, and not just since the battle. There had always been a feeling of protectiveness Faith had towards her, even at her most homicidal, when bitterness and self-hatred had been twisted into her self-delusion that she actually hated Buffy. After their miraculous survival, and especially in light of Buffy's comments and lifeless behavior on the bus, Faith's sometimes reluctant sense of protectiveness had become outright concern.

It wasn't like she actually thought Buffy was going to hang herself with a moldy shower curtain, or drink a tiny, cheap packet of motel shampoo. But still, it seemed smart to keep an ear out.