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Red	By : Prophecy Category: -Buffy the Vampire Slayer > General Views: 5499 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 7
- 8
- 9
In the distance is a line defining where I've been—the state I'm in

And ever since it began to slip from my two hands I've been

Taunting fires, touching wires, been believing liars.

Everything they said, painted in red.

I am fading in and out—

What are you gonna do?

Save me now, from this danger?

You don't know how.

I'll find my way out when I'm in the red.

Listening to strangers inside my head,

The darkening angels beneath the bed.

I still see what you said.

What are you gonna do?

No way for you to save me.
- Sara Bareilles, “Red”

Chapter Eight: Recoil

Nothing really matters in the end you know

All the worry is over

Don't be afraid for me my friend,

One day we all fall down forever

And you are not alone, laying in the light

Put out the fire in your head

And lay with me tonight
- Patti Griffin, “Not Alone”

I sit in a hard plastic chair and I wait.
I’m waiting for the same things I always wait for—a twitch, a breath, a groan. I sit and I wait and I watch her try to struggle up into consciousness, and I hope and then I break. The moment her eyes open, her mouth follows suit, and she screams and screams. As if the act of existing itself is too much to bear.
Maybe it is.
As usual, the nurses surge forward into her room like a tide and chaos ensues. Needles and vials and the beeps of machines. And then they stop, and they wait too. They need my permission, and as much as I want her pain to stop, I am a selfish person and I want her to come back to me even more.
I take her bone-white hands in mine and clamp my fingers tightly around her icy ones, and I try to hold back the tears as I say her name softly. I refuse to drown out her screams, and I press her wrists into the pillow on either side of her head, and as she screams in my ear I lower my lips to hers and I whisper her name over and over again, feeling the tears dropping more rapidly off my cheek onto hers.
"Faith. Faith. Come back to me, Faith. You're safe.. I promise you're safe.. Faith.. I'll keep you safe.."
I press my forehead to her temple and I want to scream, myself. I cry instead, my arms clenching her body against mine in a bear hug; holding on for dear life. I press myself to her and I will the life in my body to leave and go into hers instead. I'll trade, I mean it. If anyone's listening, I'll trade. But she just screams, and nobody hears my whispered prayers.
I lift my head a little and I look into her eyes as much as I can, but she doesn't look at me so much as she looks through me.
And she screams.
She doesn't scream words. Every once in a while she screams my name, but mostly she just screams. I search her deep russet eyes, swimming with tears, and I take a breath, steel myself, and nod just a little as I lean back.
The nurses swarm like bees, and her screams die down slowly as she slips back into darkness, slips away from me again.
I watch quietly and, as I always do, I ask the busy white coats if she's in pain. If that's where the screams come from, if the remnants of the council broke her body somehow. One of the nurses, an older woman named Kathryn, sets her wrinkled, papery hand over mine and Faith's, and she squeezes gently. Her eyes are wet too, and it makes me feel a little bit better that there's someone else who cares about Faith, even if she's paid for it.
Kathryn doesn't answer; she doesn't need to. When you're told the person you love has brain damage, it's not something you forget. Of course Faith is in pain. Her body, teeming with extensive scarring, welts, and burns, is also riddled with nerve damage. Even if one day she wakes up without screaming, she'll never come back to me. She'll never walk. She'll never be whole again. They say the word 'hospice' to me a lot, tell me the best thing I can do is make her as comfortable as possible. That she's gone and I have to let go.
Slowly, everyone leaves, the excitement over for the day. I look down at our hands—at Faith's hand clutching mine tightly even in unconsciousness, and I know she's still in there somewhere. I know she's not gone.
And I know I won't let go as long as she doesn't.
I stay next to her, our hands entwined, and I doze off with my head on her hospital bed. I listen to the sounds of the machines that are feeding her and keeping her here, and the rhythmic beeps and pumps lull me into an uneasy sleep.
I dream of laying on a hard cot and watching them take Faith away again. More of them passed each other in the doorway, and I watched as two of them dumped Kennedy's body unceremoniously onto the cold floor a few feet away. I thought she was dead, and then she groaned through a broken jaw, her limbs twisted unnaturally, her body paralyzed—whether from nerve damage or pain, I'll never know—and I wished she was dead. I watched them leave and I listened to Kennedy groan from the rapidly spreading pool of blood she lay in, her voice becoming a gurgle in her throat as her saliva filled her mouth.
I forced myself up as much as possible and moved closer. I could see her eyes register my presence and stare into mine very pointedly before slowly ticking over to the pillow on my cot. I knew what she needed me to do, but I shook my head, told her no. I couldn't. Her eyes pleaded with me silently and with each wet groan that came from her, I felt my stomach pitching harder. Finally I forced my weakened body to stretch and I took the pillow off the cot as I started to cry, leaning over her.
I cupped her cheek gently and I whispered that I would live, that I would leave this place and tell Willow how much she loved her. I promised her I would keep Willow safe, and she looked up at me gratefully for a moment before she closed her eyes, my bloody handprint stamped onto her cheek. My hands shaking, I pressed the pillow tightly over her face. She didn't move, even instinctively, and I held it there and I counted each agonizing second until I was positive.
I pulled the pillow away, and her eyes and cracked lips stayed closed. I pressed my fingers to her neck, feeling for a pulse that wasn't there and never would be again. I leaned in the opposite direction and vomited until there was nothing left inside me.
And then I took the pillow I had just murdered Kennedy with back to my cot, laid down, and sobbed into it.
- 7
- 8
- 9
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