The Gift, Take Two

Title: The Gift, Take Two – Chapter 4: Aftermath
Email: Dafmeister@hotmail.com
Disclaimer: The Buffyverse is owned by Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Fox and a bunch of other people who aren’t me. No infringement of copyright is intended blah blah blah…
Distribution: Faithfanfiction.net, Mystic Muse, Shades Of Grey, Slayer's Fanfic Archive, A Sorta Fairytale, Oralfxatn, anyone else who tells me first.
Rating: R
Timing: End of Season 5
Feedback: Yes please, it really helps keep my morale up when my muse is being difficult.
Spoilers: Everything up to the end of Season 5
Summary: The battle with Glory has been won, but at what cost?
Author’s notes: Huge thanks to Kaz, beta extraordinaire, and to Leila, my friend and sounding board. Also to Gabrielle and Alice, who helped me out of the legal minefield I wrote myself into.

* * * * *

Spike was picking himself up out of the rubble. His knee didn’t seem to be working right, but nothing seemed badly broken. A noise from above made him look up, and he saw Faith and Doc plunge out of the sky and crash through the roof of the warehouse Glory had used as her base that night.

“GILES! GET OVER HERE NOW!” Spike began limping as fast as he could toward the warehouse entrance.

Bursting inside, he saw Doc crawling out from under Faith’s broken form. For the first time that night, Spike’s demonic visage came forth. Snatching up an axe dropped by some minion earlier in the fight, he leapt onto the struggling demon and began hacking him to pieces. “Fucking DIE, you traitorous, murdering son of a…”

Giles and the others arrived to find Spike, covered in Doc’s sticky, blue blood, flinging down the axe as he ran to Faith. “Giles, she’s still breathing!”

“Don’t move her!” Giles yelled as he ran over. Spike looked at him as if he were mad.

“We’ve got to get her to a hospital, you pillock! Buffy, tell him!” Spike replied as Buffy and Dawn appeared in the doorway.

Giles reached down and grabbed Spike by the collar. “Listen to me! If we try to move her ourselves, we’ll probably kill her! Anya, find a phone and call an ambulance.” Anya was gone before he finished speaking. “Willow, Dawn, do what you can for Faith. Everyone else, start getting the dead out of sight. Spike, you can clear up… that.” He gestured at the remains of Doc.

Buffy’s eyes lingered on the battered Slayer before she turned and led the way out of the warehouse. As they went, Tara asked, “What about the crazy people?”

Buffy, her mind occupied with the events of the night, didn’t seem to hear her, so it was Xander who answered. “They all seemed to start drifting off after Glory went down.”

Inside the warehouse, Dawn knelt beside Willow as she tried to assess Faith’s injuries. “Is she going to die?”

“I don’t know.” Willow answered without looking up. “She’s breathing, and her pulse is okay, but the knife’s punctured her lung. She’s got a blown pupil too, so there’s probably some bleeding inside the skull.”

Dawn began to cry again, silently.

This is all my fault.

Anya ran back in, panting hard. “Ambulance… on the way…” She collapsed on a pile of sacks, wheezing.

* * * * *

The ER doors banged open. Buffy, who’d insisted on riding with Faith, was right on the heels of the paramedics as Faith was wheeled into the trauma room. One of the nurses cut her off. “Ma’am, you have to give us room to work.”

“But…” Buffy watched helplessly as Faith was hooked up to monitors and IV’s.

“Please, just let the help her. We’re going to need some details… What’s her name?”

“Uh… Faith.” Buffy shook her head, trying to clear it.

“Last name?”

“I don’t know. It never came up.”

“You’re not family then?”

“She doesn’t have family on this coast. Boston, maybe.”

The nurse frowned at that. “Okay. Is she allergic to any medication?”

When the rest of the gang arrived, barely fifteen minutes later, the interrogation was over, and Buffy was sitting in the waiting area, staring blankly into space.

“Buffy? Buffy?” Xander shook her shoulder gently. When she looked round he asked, “How bad is it?”

“They haven’t said. Where’s Dawn?”

Dawn sat down beside her sister. “I’m right here.” She took Buffy’s hand and squeezed gently. The others took seats nearby. Silence hung over them for a few minutes, then the trauma room doors opened, and Faith was being wheeled to the elevators. Buffy sprang up. “What’s happening?”

One of the doctors answered. “We’re moving her to surgery. Third floor.”

Everyone headed for the stairs, except Buffy. “You guys go, I have to make a call.”

* * * * *

Six hours later, Buffy and Giles were alone in the surgical waiting room. Spike had finally agreed to go back to his crypt and give his injuries some rest. The others had taken Tara and Dawn back to the Summers house; Dawn had almost collapsed from exhaustion and emotional overload, and Tara was feeling shaky as well – the exertion of the spell she had done with Willow, clearing the way to the tower, had been a little too much so soon after everything else that had happened to her.

“It was supposed to be me.”

Buffy’s quiet statement broke the silence that had settled over them. Giles turned to her in shock. “What do you mean?”

Buffy kept her eyes on the far wall. “It was supposed to be me, not Faith. I understand now.”

“Buffy-”

“When we did that quest, the spirit told me that death was my gift, remember? I was supposed to die tonight. My death to give Dawn life. Faith wasn’t supposed to be there. Now she’s going to die, and it should be me…” Buffy looked up at her Watcher, her eyes laden with unshed tears.

Giles got out of his chair and knelt in from of her, taking her hand in his. “No-one forced her to do what she did, she made the choice. Would you rather it had been you? Would you prefer for Dawn to lose her sister as well as her mother? Faith isn’t dead yet, and that means there’s a chance she’ll pull through. You of all people know how tough she is…” He tailed off as Buffy burst into tears.

“Buffy, listen to me. Someone or something warned Faith about what would happen tonight. It sounds to me like she was meant to be there. We both know how difficult prophecies can be to understand. If you remember, it was foretold that you would die facing the Master, but here you are.”

“I did die.” Buffy sobbed. “If I hadn’t, Faith wouldn’t even be here. If I hadn’t fallen for Angel’s diversion, Kendra wouldn’t have died, and Faith wouldn’t be dying now. Everyone around me dies or leaves, Giles. Jenny, Kendra, Angel, Cordy, Oz, Riley, Mom… I can’t take it any more.”

“I’m still here. Xander and Willow aren’t going anywhere. You’re not alone, Buffy.” Giles didn’t hear Buffy’s whispered reply.

“I’m always alone.”

* * * * *

It was mid-afternoon when an exhausted surgeon walked through the doors of the operating room. Willow and Xander had returned to the hospital hours before, Anya having volunteered to watch over Dawn and Tara. Buffy was dozing fitfully on Willow’s shoulder, and Willow’s head was nodding. Xander and Giles were staying awake thanks to a steady supply of appalling coffee and, in Giles case, the dull ache of the spear-wound in his stomach. No-one had spoken for over an hour. Both men jumped slightly when they heard the doors open. Xander gently shook Buffy and Willow awake as Giles stood up. “Doctor?”

“Are you the family?”

Giles shook his head slightly. “We’re… old friends. Faith doesn’t have any family near here. Please, how is she?”

The doctor hesitated for a moment, then said, “We were able to deal with the bleeding in her skull and patch the hole in her lung, but she’s taken a serious head trauma and lost a lot of blood, not to mention having a bunch of broken bones. The puncture wound in her shoulder was a pretty easy fix, that shouldn’t cause any problems, but the rest… If she wakes up in the next forty-eight hours, I think she’ll pull through. If not, there’s really no way to tell what will happen. We’re moving her to ICU, I’ll have one of the nurses show you the way.” The doctor disappeared in search of a shower and some sleep, and a young nurse led the four of them away.

They found Faith in a corner of the ICU. Her head was swathed in bandages; her skin seemed unnaturally pale except where it had been scraped raw by the fall. Her left arm was in a cast from the elbow almost to the fingertips and bound up in a sling to immobilise the shoulder. The outline of another cast covering her right leg was visible through under the sheets. They could only guess what injuries were covered by the sheets and thin hospital gown. The only sign of life was the almost imperceptible rise and fall of her chest. Buffy took one look at her and burst into tears.

“Can we stay with her?” Giles asked the nurse, unconsciously whispering.

“Yes, but I think you could all use some rest. Whatever happens, she won’t wake up for a few hours after the surgery. You should get some sleep and come back in this evening.”

“But-” Buffy began to protest, but Giles interrupted her.

“Buffy, Dawn needs you. I’ll stay here and call if anything happens.”

Xander put his arm around Buffy’s shoulders and gently walked her out, followed by Willow.

* * * * *

Tara met them at the door of the Summer’s house. Willow immediately flung her arms around her girlfriend, reassuring herself that the woman she loved was really back. Tara hugged her back with equal fervour before turning to Buffy and Xander. “How’s Faith?”

Buffy answered. “She came out of surgery about a half hour ago. She’s in pretty bad shape, but the doctor’s say she has a chance. Is Dawn…?”

Anya appeared behind Tara. “She’s in her room, she said she wanted to be alone for a while.”

“I’d better go see her…” Buffy said as she turned toward the stairs. Xander and Anya greeted each other with an unusually chaste kiss, then Xander turned to his best friend and her girlfriend. “It’s really good to have you back, Tara.”

Buffy knocked gently on the door of Dawn’s bedroom. Not getting a response she knocked again, and then quietly opened the door.

Dawn was sitting motionless on her bed, staring at the opposite wall. She was still wearing the dress Glory had put on her for the ritual. She didn’t move when Buffy sat down next to her and took her hand, she simply asked, “Is she dead?”

“No, Dawnie, she’s not dead. She’s hurt really bad, but she’s strong. I think she’ll be okay.” The lie slipped easily from Buffy’s lips: she was still sure that she would lose someone else close to her. Hope seemed to have died in Buffy Summers.

“I told you…” The words caught in Dawn’s throat as tears fell again from her red-rimmed eyes. “I told you I was evil. I must be…”

Buffy seized Dawn by the shoulders and turned the young girl to face her. “This is not your fault, Dawn! You’re the victim in this! I don’t care what the Key was, or what it was made to do, that all changed when those monks made you. My sister didn’t cause any of this. You want to blame someone, blame Glory! Blame those bastard Knights! Blame the people who wanted to hurt you.” Buffy gently pulled her into a hug.

“But it all started after I arrived!” Dawn sobbed against Buffy’s shoulder. “Glory came, and Riley left, and Mom died. It’s all me!”

“Dawn! You think it’s because of you that Mom died? How can you even think that?”

“Oh come on, Buffy! She was never sick, then the big blob of energy turns up, and suddenly she has a brain tumour? You think that’s a coincidence?”

“We don’t know when the tumour started, Dawn.” Buffy whispered, the pain of losing her mother suddenly fresh again. “It could have been ages ago. You remember when she last had a CAT scan?”

“Yeah, it was…” Dawn trailed off, realizing she hadn’t really been there at the time.

“It was when she was in the hospital after Darla attacked her.” Buffy finished for her. “More than four years ago. The doctors told her it was probably there for months before she felt the symptoms. Before you were sent to us.”

“But what if…”

“No what ifs, Dawn. Mom wasn’t your fault. Tara wasn’t your fault. Giles wasn’t your fault. Faith wasn’t your fault.” She was mine…

* * * * *

Everyone ended up sleeping at the Summers’ house, returning to the hospital that night. Spike was already there; he had arrived at sunset, sending the exhausted Giles home for the night, and was sitting with Faith when the gang arrived. In spite of Buffy’s best efforts, Dawn insisted on seeing Faith. Buffy expected her sister would break down in tears, but Dawn was feeling too emotionally numb by this point. The hospital would only allow two people to stay in the ICU with Faith, so Spike took her out to the waiting area, along with Xander, Anya and Tara, while Buffy and Willow sat by Faith’s bed.

“Will, I…” Buffy began to ask the question she’d been wanting to ask all day, but couldn’t quite make the words come out.

Willow looked up at her. “What’s the matter, Buffy?”

Buffy’s expression somehow managed to combine hope and guilt. “I need you to do something for me, but I don’t think you’re going to want to.” Willow didn’t respond, she just waited patiently until Buffy spoke again. “I’m worried someone’s going to recognise Faith and call the cops. Is there something you and Tara can do, a spell or something, to hide her?”

“I don’t know, I mean maybe, but Buffy…” Willow paused for a moment. “You just want to let her walk after what she did to us?”

“I know, Will, but she saved Dawn’s life last night, not to mention the world. Shouldn’t that count for something?”

“It does, Buffy. It counts for a lot, but she killed people, remember, human people. She murdered that geologist, not to mention helping the Mayor try to eat our whole graduating class.”

“None of which would have happened if whoever decides these things hadn’t chosen her to follow Kendra.” Buffy’s voice was almost pleading. “Look, I’m not saying we hide her forever, just long enough for her recover.” Or die in peace…

Willow could feel her resolve weakening. “Tara told me she was planning to go back to jail once we finished with Glory. Does it matter if the cops find her here?”

“Yes, it does. She should get some credit for it, not just get caught because she was hurt before she could turn herself in.” Buffy reached over and took her friend’s hand. “I just want to give her some peace, Will. I think she’s earned that much.”

Willow’s desire to help her friend finally won out over her lingering hatred of Faith. “I’ll talk to Tara. If she agrees, we’ll look for something. Okay?”

“Thanks, Will.”

A watch rotation was soon decided and everyone except Buffy and Spike headed off again; Willow and Tara staying over at the house with Dawn while Xander and Anya returned to his apartment. So Buffy watched Faith, looking for some sign of improvement, while Spike watched Buffy. For a long time neither of them spoke.

“I’m sorry.” It was after midnight when Spike finally broke the silence. Buffy looked up at him in surprise – truthfully, he’d been so quiet she’d almost forgotten he was there. Her brow furrowed in confusion as she realized what he’d said. “For what?”

“For this.” He waved his hand over Faith’s unconscious form. “I should’ve been able to beat that bastard myself. I should’ve made sure he was dead the first time. If Faith hadn’t followed me…” Spike screwed his eyes shut, not wanting to think about what that would have meant. Buffy wanted to say something comforting, knowing how bad she felt when a self-perceived failure got someone hurt. She remembered standing with Giles by Jenny Calendar’s grave (“I wish I could have killed him for you… for her…”), but some part of her did blame Spike for this. She knew it wasn’t fair, but the angry voice at the back of her mind kept repeating, he promised to protect Dawn, and he failed. Not trusting herself to speak, she reached out and took his hand. They sat like that for a long time.

* * * * *

Xander and Anya came by to relieve them a little before dawn, giving Spike time to get back to his crypt safely. Willow and Tara took over in the early afternoon, and Buffy returned that night, this time with Giles. She’d asked Spike to watch over Dawn that night, allowing Willow and Tara some time alone together, and he’d readily agreed – they were both a little uncomfortable together after the previous night. Through it all, Faith remained in a condition described by the doctors as “serious but stable”.

In the small hours of the morning, Buffy was returning to Faith’s bedside from the bathroom when she saw a familiar figure at the nurses’ station asking where Faith was.

“Angel?”