Clarita watched as Faith and Janice stared at each other. Neither moved, but suddenly the sorceress's face was beaded with perspiration.

"Doctor."

Even her voice had a faint tremor, and that couldn't be a good sign.

"What is it? What's happening?"

There was a long pause, and the girl sitting on the bed gave a convulsive movement. Her right arm jerked suddenly, pulling the IV tube free. Blood flowed, spilling down her arm in a small rivulet of crimson.

"My god."

Unexpectedly, Janice smiled slightly.

"No, I'm calling on someone quite different for aid. But the girl is more... determined than I had believed possible. Unless you do something fairly quickly, we may find ourselves in... trouble."

This had not been part of the plan, and Clarita was not certain if she should run or attack. The thing was, she didn't know what would happen if she hit Faith. It might just jolt her free of the spell or whatever, and that would be the end of them. She advanced carefully towards the bed, watching the girl. The Slayer was trembling slightly, and the blood had slowed nearly to a halt. The venom hadn't had a chance to affect her powers, then. Not enough, anyway, and now the drip was spilling uselessly to the floor. Well, there was more than one way to administer a drug. She crouched down and began a frenzied search of the bedside cabinet. With a coma patient, there was no need to keep such things out of their reach. The staff were the only ones with access, so some basics were usually kept handy. Sterile dressings, antiseptics and ointments used to treat bedsores... and empty syringes.

She was making progress, gaining ground inch by inch, nerve by nerve in the battle to control her body. Whatever power it was that made a Slayer, it gave them at least some clout against magic. Not immunity, but a fighting chance.

Which was all she had ever asked for.

Faith had lost exactly two fights since becoming a Slayer; once against a demon, and the other, well, that one was as much her own fault as it was the someone else's. Two times a loser, out of hundreds, and look where it had led. No matter what it took, there was no way she was going to let it be three. She needed her arm to move, only her arm, and she would be able to win this one.

Clarita stood, clawing at the plastic packaging around the syringe. She glanced at Faith, and was shocked to see the girl fumbling at the far side of the bed. She was still sitting rigidly upright, but her right hand was tugging at something the doctor couldn't see. If the Slayer wanted something that badly, it was something she mustn't be allowed to have. She hurried around the foot of the bed, getting to the other side just in time to see Faith pull a gun from underneath the mattress. She cried out, dropping the syringe and grabbing at the weapon, trying desperately to pry it from the girl.

It was no good; the Slayer had a death grip on the pistol, her fingers like iron bars; she couldn't get it away. With jerky movements, the gun was aimed in the general direction of the doorway where Janice stood. A moment later, it jerked back away, the arm that held it trembling fiercely.

"Hurry, doctor."

The woman's face was showing the strain, which was echoed in Faith's gritted teeth and trembling body. Rather than waste time rounding the bed again, Clarita snatched the hypodermic from the floor and threw herself across the bed, clambering over the girl's legs as she did so. She reached the other side, trying to keep her hands steady as she punched the needle into the IV bag and pulled back on the plunger. She guessed the appropriate dosage, and after an instant's hesitation she added half-again as much. This was no time to be overly cautious. She turned, only to see the gun once again aimed at the doorway, though Faith's hand was trembling so violently that her chances of actually hitting anything were debatable. Her index finger was on the trigger, and it was tensing slowly. Janice stood motionless in the door, not blinking, not moving, staring at her death.

"Hurry; please."

Clarita grabbed hold of the Slayer's other arm and inserted the needle into a vein. With her thumb, she pushed the plunger down.

Just another quarter-inch, that was all that stood between her and putting this Willow-clone's brains all over the wall. She was going to do it, she was going to win. Bad-girl Faith wasn't going to lose this time.

With all the freaky stuff that was going on along her nerves and synapses, she didn't even feel what the doctor had done to her. Not at first. Then a tingling ran through her, starting in her arm and washing up and into her shoulder and chest like a warm tide. She gasped, trying to reach it in time, to change the blood flows, slow it down long enough to let her kill these two and get away. She couldn't do it. The instant her concentration was diverted, the redhead had control of the gun-arm again, swinging it safely away from her. When Faith tried to force it back, the drug gained more ground. It was already eating away at her strength, drowning her in a pool of warm softness. The sorceress smiled, and started walking forward, fully in control again. It was too much, they had screwed her too many ways for her to deal with them all at once. With a moan she was forced back, her head thumping down on the pillow. Her hand spasmed open, dropping the gun to the sheets beside her leg. The doctor was staring at the monitor beside the bed, her face grim.

"Her pulse and blood-pressure are falling fast. I may have given her too much."

The other woman stepped up beside her and looked down at Faith. The Slayer was still conscious, but all she could do was snarl wordlessly. She felt herself fading, and there wasn't anything she could do.

"Better a little too much than a smidgeon too little. You did well." The strange woman reached out and caressed the side of Faith's face with cool fingers. "Our girl will be fine; you will see to that. Her will is strong, that's good. My... patron will be most pleased with her. Most pleased."

The doc seemed uneasy at that, but Faith didn't have the energy to care, anymore. The darkness was rising all around her, and it felt so good, so peaceful, that she couldn't remember why she had been fighting it.

The last thought she had was that this made three.

Kira walked slowly down the hallway. It was a little past ten, and she had to talk to Faith. She had been doing a lot of thinking, since last night. It had taken her a long time, but she was pretty sure that she had it figured out.

Faith scared her. What she had done to that man... even a bad person didn't deserve to have that happen to them. Nobody did. Worse than that, the older girl had liked doing it; Kira had seen enough of it to know that, too. Faith was sick; sick in the head like the people on the tee-vee news who went crazy and killed people for no reason at all. That was a horrible thing, and it really made her want to run away and never see Faith again. Never talk to her, never even think about her. It would probably be best if she pretended that she had never even met her.

The thing was, that would be wrong too. Kira knew it was, because somebody had done it to her. She was sick too, and it was horrible that she was going to die, and maybe it was something that you could catch from her, if a bunch of accidental things happened. That still didn't make it right that her father had brought her here, and left her here, all alone. It hurt, what he had done to her; it hurt even more than being sick and not being able to eat or sleep because of how bad she felt. All the rest of it would have been okay, if only he was there with her. If only somebody had cared.

Faith cared. She was the only one who did, now. It had been weeks since her father and Sonja had been to see her, and nobody else in her family had come for a long time before that. Faith hadn't minded that she was sick. She had become Kira's friend anyway. She had even agreed to let Kira come along with her when she left, even though she must think that such a sick little girl would be a lot of trouble. She knew what was wrong with Kira, and she didn't care. Faith knew that what had happened to her was not her fault.

It would be wrong if she didn't treat Faith the same way. Whatever was wrong with her friend, it must be because something bad had happened to her. She had never talked any more about her sister trying to kill her, but that was probably just the sort of stuff that could make you crazy. Faith didn't need more people being mean to her; that wouldn't help. She needed people who would stay, who would be her friend even if they were a little bit scared of her. That was the only way she might get better.

She needed someone to love her.

Kira peeked into Faith's room. The girl was laying on the bed, pretending to be asleep, like always. She breathed a sigh of relief. She had been afraid that after last night the other girl would have decided to leave without her. She ran up to the bed.

"Faith, I'm ready to go." She put her hands on the side of the bed and stared into the girl's face. "Faith, wake up. I've got my stuff all ready, but I need you to help me carry it. We can sneak past the nurse if we hurry, she's at the other end drinking... Faith?" She wasn't opening her eyes, or moving much besides breathing. There was some blood on one of her arms, too, and a little more on the sheet beside her. Fear, real fear suddenly grabbed hold of the little girl. "Faith! Wake up!" She put her hands on the motionless arm and began shaking her, gently at first, then harder and harder. "Faith, what's the matter with you? C'mon, wake up!" Still nothing, even though the older girl's head was rocking from side to side with the force of the shaking. Her eyelids still didn't open. Kira felt tears well from her own eyes, and her breath started coming in little hiccups. "F-Faith. I'm s-sorry I ran away last night. I j-just got scared of all the b-blood and stuff. Please, wake up. We h-have to go now."

Her friend lay there, not moving except for her chest moving up and down with her breathing, and even that was really slow. Kira stood there, crying, wondering what to do.

"Here now, you shouldn't be in here."

She whirled, staring at the woman in the doorway. It was one of the doctor-ladies who came up sometimes to look at the sleeping people. Kira wiped her eyes, looking down so the doctor wouldn't see.

"Are you lost?" The woman walked forwards, her eyes running across all the blinking numbers on the machines next to Faith's bed. "You mustn't come in here, you know. This girl is very very sick, it might not be healthy for you to be near her, especially in your condition." Kira blinked in surprise, and she couldn't help but look up at her. The doctor smiled slightly. "I've seen you around. You should stay away from other patients, you could catch what they have. Especially this one." She looked at Faith, and she didn't look very happy. "This is an especially nasty case we have here. Her... sickness has killed a lot of people; one of them just recently." She glanced down at the little girl. "Run along now. Don't let me catch you down here again, or I'll tell the nurses, all right?"

Kira nodded, backing away. It didn't make any sense. Faith had seemed fine, before. Why was she not able to wake up? Had the man from last night hurt her? She trudged down the hall towards the corner, and the nurse's station. The man.... She gasped, stopping dead and looking all around.

The twisted man, the one from before. It must have been him. He had found Faith laying there, and he had put that shadowy stuff into her, just like he had with Melinda. It had made her sicker, and now she couldn't wake up. She hadn't died, though. Kira started walking again, moving a little faster. If that man were coming up here again, she would have to start hiding again. Not all the time, though. She would come back and check on Faith; every single night. If she didn't die, then she would get better. She would wake up, and then Kira would be able to tell her that she was sorry, and still her friend. Then they would leave here, and never ever have to worry about monsters again.