Clarita tried to relax as she walked slowly down the hallway. There, the last door down at the end. She had been here scores of times since June, but never before had it loomed like the mouth of a lion's den. She wiped her clammy palms on her sleeves, juggling the plastic IV bag she held. It was labeled as glucose, and for the most part it still was, but there had been some additions.

Far too soon, she reached the door. Her instinct was to pause and gather herself, but that was just what she could not do. A Slayer could sense things, could hear the slightest movement, her breathing, perhaps even her heartbeat at close range. She needed to be calm. Walking smoothly, casually, she entered the room as she usually did. Her eyes flicked to the girl lying there. Faith's features were calm, even serene. There was no sign of awareness there; as there hadn't been every other time she had looked into that face. If what they suspected was true, then many of those visits had been just like this one; with the Slayer awake and aware, a fraction of a second away from lethal violence.

This line of thought was not helping her stay calm. She stepped to the foot of the bed and removed the chart, per her usual pattern. She stared at the entries for a few seconds without seeing them, then scribbled her name and the time at the bottom. None of this really mattered; the important thing was for her to replace the nearly empty IV bag hanging beside the bed with the one she was carrying. She'd done similar things before, there was no reason for the girl to be suspicious. Unless James had spoken of her. That thought chilled her, and it was all she could do to rehang the chart without dropping it to the floor. How long had it taken him to die? Had she questioned him about the Watcher's activities, their goals? God, what if she knew everything? That would give her ample incentive to kill Clarita, to kill them all. The girl had a history of psychopathic behavior, she killed for pleasure! Given a reason to kill, who could say what she was capable of? Maybe even laying in wait for the woman who had been assigned to keep watch on her.

She realized with a start that she had been standing there, motionless, for a minute or more. She needed to hang the IV. The silence in the room was deafening. Usually she made idle comments out loud when she was here, either to herself or to the unconscious form on the bed. If she said nothing this time, that might be enough to tip her hand, to alert the Slayer that something was wrong. Licking her lips, she spoke.

The doc was being quiet today. Usually she was talking up a storm, bitching about the incompetent doctors, or the food, or the weather. Her faint English accent had automatically made Faith think that she was a Watcher, right from the beginning. Which was one reason why she had maintained the impression that she was still living the life of a turnip. Sometimes she wondered, though. Not every British-born person in the United States could be working for those people, could they? Not even every Brit in Sunnydale. But it did seem like most of them did. She had settled on calling it fifty-fifty that Doctor Laidlow was a bad guy. (That almost made her laugh; who was she to call anybody a 'bad guy'?) It really didn't matter. So long as she didn't hook Faith up to a brain-wave-reader-thing, there was no way for her to know what was up. Unless something else had happened to give her away, but then why would she be here....

Blah, blah, blah. Thinking in circles made her head hurt. She lay there and waited for the Doc to finish up with whatever and leave. Though she was being awfully quiet....

"So. You're looking a bit better, today."

Ah, here it was. She settled down mentally and waited to find out who had made Laidlow's shit list this week.

"Hm. It looks like you've gained some weight back, too. That's good."

Yeah, well. No thanks to the gruel they put down the tube. Not that she had to worry about that, anymore. Once they were on the road, she'd use some of James's cash and hit a truck stop with an all-you-could eat buffet. That made her think of Kira's inability to eat, or at least, to keep much of anything down. There had to be a way to help the kid. If medicine couldn't do it, then maybe magic could. She knew where to look for the people who could do things like that. She would find someone, and whatever they needed in payment, she would get for them. The Mayor had once mentioned a group of sorcerers in Oregon who could reportedly do some pretty wild stuff. The drawback was that their powers came from demons, and they demanded some seriously large payment in exchange for what they did. Large, as in, human sacrifice. Faith didn't have a problem with that, not when it was for something important.

"Damn. Those nurses are too lazy to even change your IV. No wonder they ask me to fill in for pick-up surgeries around here. Everyone is too busy sitting on their asses to get anything done."

Gee, the lady doc was off her game today. That was tame compared to what she usually spouted. Faith lay there, listening to the sounds of the woman fiddling with the various medical crap that was clustered up over the left side of the bed, and waited for her to hurry up and leave.

Almost done, which was a good thing because her nerves were shot to hell. She disconnected the old bag, setting it to one side as she hung the new one. Her gaze was again irresistibly drawn to the girl's face. It didn't look like the face of a killer. In repose, she looked younger than in the photos she had been shown; almost vulnerable. Clarita stood there, caught in a sudden, paralyzing bout of indecision. How could she be sure Faith was responsible? Even if she were faking right now, even if she were conscious and ready to bolt upright at any second, how sure was Doctor Clarita Laidlow that this girl had killed her ex-lover? All she knew was what Janice had told her, and what kind of source was that? She had her doubts that the sorceress was even as human as the Slayer. She was planning to perform a human sacrifice for god's sake! The IV was hung and connected, all she needed to do was slide open the little regulator built into the tube, and the liquid would enter the body of the girl laying helpless in front of her. One flick of her finger, and a horrible mix of toxins and drugs would flow down that tube and into Faith. It would almost certainly render her incapacitated in truth.

It might also kill her.

There was no way to be sure about the dosage, not when so much depended on how much, if any, of the Slayer's strength had actually returned. With Janice standing beside her, she had mixed the Council's 'discipline drug', adding generous measures of Morphine and a powerful general sedative. That was a lot of stress to put on an unconscious person; enough to suppress their metabolism to a dangerous extent. It should be about right to take the wind out of a Slayer. Should be. She reached for the switch, and again she hesitated. If only she could be sure! If there had been a body, some proof that James was actually dead, then she would be willing to drug the girl just to be safe. There wasn't any proof, though, and the risk to Faith was small but very real. Perhaps she should go and speak to Janice again. It didn't seem as if this patient were going anywhere.

She had actually started to turn away when something caught her eye. A smudge on Faith's neck, just below her ear. Clarita leaned a little closer, trying to make it out. It was half-covered by the girl's hair, but now that she had seen it, it was very clear what it was. A smear of crusty red-brown. It was dried blood, and not from any wound of the girl.

"Well. You seem a bit dehydrated, probably not getting enough fluids lately." Her voice was amazingly steady, considering what she was feeling in that moment. "This will fix you right up."

She slid the switch all the way to the end, opening the IV wide. She then stood there, watching, as the clear liquid rushed down the tube.

Okay, thank you, just finish your chores and get out of here all ready. It was hard to plan ahead when somebody was standing over you, switching back and forth between staring and talking. Faith could feel the woman's eyes on her; it sort of made her wonder if the doc weren't developing a bit of a 'thang' for her patient. Heh. But... nah. She wasn't looking her best right now; she doubted that was it. Maybe she had a bruise or something from last night's scuffle with Kung-fu man. She hadn't seen anything like that while she was doing her hasty wash-up, though. Probably it was just what any doctor thought when they looked at a veggy-person laying there. Something like: 'Hey, just look at all those perfectly good organs, going to waste'. Not that anybody would enjoy getting something from a Slayer. If you put her heart or kidney into somebody, it would probably tear it's way out of his chest and go running off somewhere. Okay, not really, but she had to think of stuff like that to pass the time. The doc was still shuffling around the room, doing something useless. Faith got half-annoyed at that, but not as much as she expected. She was feeling pretty good, actually. More relaxed, less fidgety. That was a relief. Maybe she could actually get a nap in before tonight; that was bound to make her less cranky on the way out of town. The less cranky she was, the more likely it was that whoever gave them a ride would live through it.

No, wait. She would have to play it cool, with Kira along. No casual wasting of the bystanders, even if it was the expedient thing to do. So long as she didn't have to fight her way out of the hospital, there shouldn't be any kind of police manhunt going on, which meant that there wasn't a big need to get rid of any witnesses. All she had to do was make sure that whoever they got a ride with was not somebody that Buffy, or the Watchers, could manage to track down. That would give them a clue as to where the two of them were headed, and she didn't want that.

She realized that she was starting to drift. She felt sleep beckoning and she didn't try to fight it. She felt good; warm, peaceful, floating....

"Fucking Watcher Hag!"

She lunged upright in the bed, eyes wide and staring. She had done Heroin a few times, back in Boston, before the Slayer thing came along, and it had felt just like this. Someone had drugged her, and it was really easy to guess who it had been. Doc Laidlow was standing by the open door, staring at her with wide eyes. Faith glared at her, ripping the feeding tube out, not caring that she did it with such force that it caused blood to run from her nostril. It was already stopping as she reached across to the tube taped to her arm.

"You unbelievable bitch. Don't even bother running, lady. You are already so fucking dead that they haven't made up the words to describe it." She had hold of the IV. She wasn't going to fool around with taking off the tape and pulling out the needle; one good yank would tear it out, and then the good doctor was going to get her intestines pulled out through her navel. She pulled, hard-

And an icy-cold enveloped her entire body, locking her into place. She shuddered, trying to move, to get free, but it was like she was encased in a block of ice. She couldn't move, could barely even breathe. It took effort, but she got her eyes to track left, to look at the doorway. Doctor Laidlow was no longer standing there by herself. A freaky-looking red-haired woman had just walked in, and her eyes were fixed on Faith.

"Well-done, doctor. I have her now."

Magic. She was screwed.

Clarita looked anxious, staring at Faith from the doorway.

"Can you keep her from moving for long enough? It may take some time for enough of the solution to get into her system to incapacitate her."

She had messed up, and messed up big-time. That was no reason to stop fighting. She struggled to move, exerting every bit of force she could. It wasn't like something was actually, physically holding her, it was more like... something was inside her body, interfering with the impulses between her brain and her limbs. Her body was her home turf; she could fight anything that took place there. She dove down inside herself and got ready to rumble.