Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

So I'm sitting in a coffee shop with my partner Nikki, knocking back a couple cups. The place is called El Toro d'Oro, The Bull of the West; it's three in the morning, and we're having a slow night.

Oh crap. Shouldn't have said that. See, the word “slow” is kind of considered a jinx in our world. So are the words “quiet” and “calm.” You're not supposed to think them, and you're sure as hell not supposed to say them. If someone asks how it is out there, you're supposed to say, “It's a nice night”, or maybe “I'm feeling a little at peace.” Either that or you're getting hammered. It all depends on the night, the season, and the phase of the moon.

Statistics will tell you that it's a myth that people go crazy on the full moon. I saw one study that actually said that psychiatric admissions go way down during the 3-day period around it. I can tell you from personal experience, whoever made those studies were totally full of shit. One of my instructors once told me that “lunatic” is derived from Latin, and really means “governed by the moon.” I swear, this job, you learn to believe it.

And I know you're just dying to find out what “this job” is, with its strange lingo and superstitions. Okay, so I'll tell you. And you're going to shit yourself, because the last you heard of me, this wasn't anything even remotely like where you thought I was headed. God knows I didn't expect to end up here.

My name is Faith Lehane (hi Faith!), and I'm a paramedic.

Yeah. You heard me. The murdering, confessed and convicted felon, ass-kicking Slayer-turned-prison escapee now spends her nights not chasing vamps, but chasing whacked-out drug addicts and heart attacks. I carry enough narcotics on my belt to knock out five or six people, and the number of lives I consider myself to have saved is starting to come close to equaling the number of notches on my bedpost. See, I have their names memorized, every single one (unlike the other list). Twenty-seven. You heard me. I am directly responsible for twenty-seven people being alive, who wouldn't be without me. And you're damn right I'm proud.

Now, I know what you're saying. First of all, when the fuck did I get my certification? And how the hell is an ex-felon running around with large quantities of drugs on her belt, touching our children and grandmothers? It's disgraceful!

Yeah, well, stuff it. I did my time (a small part of it, anyway, but it was productive), and I say that saving the world a couple times over before Sunnyhell went down is enough of a penance, don't you? Especially having to put up with the Slayerettes. God those girls bugged the shit out of me. But after Sunny D went all “seismic” I convinced Red and the Scoobies to hack the system, make like I didn't exist, or at least like my past didn't. Then I ducked out quietly, and did a little thinking.

I got so lost in thought that I got my ass hit by a fuckin' Mack truck.

The EMTs who showed up—Emergency Medical Technicians, like paramedics but without all the shiny needles—they found me concussed, my face all bruised to hell, and a good number of my ribs cracked. Now, they had no way of knowing about the Slayer healing—how could they?—but apparently they took me to County, lights and sirens screaming. I was half-conscious at the time, but I remember the one girl, Leslie, she kept coming back and back to check on me for the next two days before I checked out of the hospital. She was really concerned, y'know? Real compassionate. So I asked her how to get into it, got myself in the right programs, and a year and a half (and a bunch of hours working in coffee shops) later I hit the streets.

So now I work for Keating Memorial, riding the graveyard shift, and that's alright by me.

Oh, and to sort out the confusion? My 'partner' I mentioned before? She's my work partner, not my bedmate. Well, unless they get reallydesperate and mandate the whole tour—sorry, shift—and make us sleep at the station. But that only happened once, and we had our clothes on the whole time. I'm not like  that anymore, not really—hell, almost entirely not. It's disgusting how goody-goody I am these days.

So here we are, sitting in our favorite coffee shop, just shooting the shit, and listening to the dispatcher give out the jobs, slow and steady. It's Wednesday night, so everything's a crapshoot; Friday and Saturday they'll give out jobs like they're candy, and nobody rests. After all, it's LA; if someone's not getting stabbed or beaten, or if drunks aren't hitting each other's Hummers, there's a problem. Sundays are the cooling-off nights; most of the squares have work in the morning, so things stay quiet, but the early weeknights are totally up for grabs. Not to mention that moon factor. But tonight it's about two-thirds, waxing, and there's nothing really special going on.

“One-three David for the assignment, Thirteen Dave.” The radio crackles by my ear; the voice sounds like Frank, the night dispatcher.

“Three David.”

“David, take it to West Jefferson and Altomare for the injury, PD is requesting a rush for a female assaulted, unknown weapons, bleeding from the neck.” My eyes go wide; I know what this is.

“Three David, en route.”

Nikki shoots me a look, even before I slide my radio off its holster; she knows what's coming, but I slam down a couple singles and start my walk to the bus anyway. My portable's up, and I put on my huskiest, come-hither voice for the dispatcher.

“One-Three Victor.”

“Thirteen Vic, go.”

“Victor, I have a three minute ETA to that job. Show me en route.” My keys are magically in my other hand, and I'm opening the driver's-side door; Nikki is mirroring me on the other side of the truck. She knows what's coming. Hell, everyone who works with me does. See, I'm a medic, but I'm a trauma junkie at heart; everyone, dispatchers included, have gotten used to me buffing these kinds of jobs.

“Thirteen Victor, be advised, this is a BLS assignment. I need you to stay available.” Problem: jobs like these are usually handled by EMTs, not medics. Hypothetically, we handle more of the medical calls—heart attacks, seizures, strokes, things like that. But, c'mon, guys, I'm still me. Youreally think I'm going to let that stop me?

“One-three Victor, do you copy? Cancel your response.” Bite me, Frank. But I hear Nikki's voice on the air.

“Victor, ten-four. Available.” I glance at her; she's pulling her seat belt on. She's such a goody-two-shoes, but she knows what's coming anyway. I smile to myself as I start the truck, slap the switch for the lights, and go tearing off down the street.

Now, the address she gave us is a good ten minutes away from where we're sitting, twenty if you follow the rules. I know this, Nikki knows this, the dispatcher knows this. And judging by where they're supposed to be, David should be three or four minutes out, tops. So I put the hammer down.

Have I mentioned that I like mechanical things, too? I take care of my ambulance. She's been good to me, and I change her oil, feed her the best diesel I can find. I've been known to Armorall her. One night I got really bored and waxed every inch of her, top to bottom. So she likes me, and I like her. And she doesn't protest when I go flying, Slayer reflexes fighting with Ford engineering. They don't make cars to handle the way I drive. Well, not ambulances, anyway. But she takes care of me.

The tires are smoking a little bit as I pull up next to the squad car, one of the officers waving me down with a flashlight. I can smell nothing but brakes as we get out, and I leave it running as I go to the back, pull out the stretcher. Nikki's already popped her head in the side door, tossing the equipment on the cot while I murmur into the radio.

“Thirteen Victor, show me flagged by PD at Altomare and West Jefferson. You can cancel Three David,” I say, sickeningly sweet. This one and I never get along. But the stretcher's out, the equipment's out, and I'm pulling on my gloves as Nikki and I wheel it on over towards the alleyway. LAPD is beckoning.

One looks at me, clearly a rookie, clearly nervous. “She's unconscious,” he says, worried. “She's got these two holes in her neck, she's bleeding really bad.” Vampire. Shit. He holds up a piece of wood, filed down at one end. “No sign of the perp, but we found this near her.”

My eyes go wide, but I nod, and turn my attention to the girl down in the alleyway. And my heart starts beating all kinds of heavy, because I can feel something I haven't felt in almost three years. Something deep, something instinctive, something that sends a shiver down my spine:

This girl is a Slayer.

Chapter Text

I stand over her, frozen, looking down at the bitten Slayer on the street before me. She's breathing, and her neck wounds are pretty bad, but that's the medic in me watching. The Faith in me is looking at her head, past the brown mess of hair. Wordlessly, I reach down to turn her head so that I can see her face. There's some bruising there, her lip is bloodied, her left eye would be swollen shut if she weren't already unconscious. But I know that face.

Kennedy.

For the first time in my medical career I'm frozen, staring down at her, watching her chest rise and fall (shallowly, the medic in me notes). Of all the trauma jobs in all the world...

“Faith!” My eyes snap up, and part of me panics, looking for whoever identified me, but it's only Nikki. “Come on. Drop the stretcher with me.” I snap out of it, fall into Doing Something About It mode. Me and Nikki, we've been partners for a few months. We know how each other work, and we do it, dropping the stretcher, picking her up, transferring her over. We get it up, get it loaded into the bus. I get the start kit and start spiking lines; she's looking at PD.

“Any witnesses?” They shake their heads. “Who called it in?”

“Passerby, we think.”

Meanwhile, I'm checking her out. She seems to be breathing okay; no snoring, so her tongue isn't getting in the way. I should put something in her mouth, but I have a feeling she'd gag; last thing I need is puked on. Put her on some oxygen, listen to her lungs. Lungs sound clear—no blood in them, and she's moving air well. I put an occlusive dressing on the wound—a piece of plastic to prevent air from getting into her vein (damn vamp missed the artery, so maybe she won't bleed out) going to her brain, and causing her to stroke out and die. Also conveniently contains the bleeding. Don't need to feel her skin; she's cool, pale, sweaty. Classic shock. I put her legs up, cover her with a couple blankets. Going down her body: three broken ribs on the left, two on the right, but no paradoxical motion. She's breathing adequately, no snoring, so her airway's fine. Broken radius-ulna on her left, too; her legs seem okay. Pupils are... sluggish, but they're equal. No major head trauma. Technically she should be on a board and collar anyway, but...

Meanwhile Nikki's busted out the tourniquets, both arms. I'm starting a large-bore IV on the left, and she's working on the right; Ken's got good veins. Liter bags of Ringer's Lactate go up bilat, and they're both first-stick lines.

And here comes the second ambulance. Oh joy.

“This is our job, guys,” I hear one of them say. “Why are you buffing BLS?”

“She look conscious to you?” The words are automatic; I'm double-checking for any major injuries. There's a small cut on the back of her head; I slide a bandage on it while we spar.

“What?”

“She's an unconscious, moron. ALS job. Get out.”

“I wanna ride with.”

“Too bad.”

Nikki's looking up at me from the side. “BP's seventy over palp, and her heart rate is in the thirties.” Okay, pulse is slow for shock, even for a Slayer. That pressure, though...

Nix starts hooking up a three-lead, but I already know she's in a sinus rhythm. Brady--slow--but coming from the right place.

And then one of the cops has to go and ruin my night. LAPD sticks his head in the back, looks at my partner. “Family's here. Can they ride with?”

Fuck. Shit fuck goddamn hell. But Nikki is by the book; she nods.

I'm torn. I want to hide immediately, get as far away from the "family" as I can. I haven't been hiding this long to have it come to an end now. But there's something I gotta do, and I can't ask Nix to do it for me. I can't even tell her what it is. Screw it. I look at my partner.

“Keys are in the ignition. You're driving.”

“But...”

“Just do it, Nikki.” I have that look in my eye, and she nods. She jumps out the back, and I finish setting up that EKG. Sinus bradycardia. I wait, watch for a minute, print a strip. Shit. She's throwing PVCs. Shit shit shit. I hook up the automatic BP cuff on the monitor, and there's a problem, as in major. It's reading 64/50. Normal for a Slayer like Kennedy is probably around 100/70, and you lose the carotid pulse at 60. That's when you start CPR. Shit shit double shit. I barely even notice the two people who jump into the bus. I mutter at them, “Seat belts,” and close the door. I turn around, talk through the pass-through.

“I'm ready when you are, Nix.”

“How is she?” That voice... oh fuck.

I turn back to the patient, and nearly shit myself. Because sitting there, sitting right there in the back of my bus, are Red and B.

Now, the only reason they're not having the same “oh shit” reaction as I'm having right now is, quite frankly, magic.

I kinda figured something like this would happen one day. So the day before I started medic school I went out and bought myself a couple charms, just to make sure nobody recognized me. So even though she's looking right at me, Buffy isn't seeing me. She's seeing a girl my height, my build (can't change your mass no matter what you glamour), but with red hair and freckles. I would have gone for green eyes, too, but you can't glamour eyes for some reason. Windows of the the soul or some shit.

Anyway, I had the second one enchanted to suppress the Slayer bond. It works pretty well—I can't feel them, they can't feel me, but it probably doesn't work under, mmm, 5 feet. And B's close enough to reach out and touch me. I just pray she doesn't remember my last name. Not sure I ever told anyone but Red and Angel, and Angel...

“She's dying,” I say, straight-up. I'm no good at lying. “She's lost a lot of blood, and fluids can't just replace it. She needs plasma, red blood cells.” I'm doing what I can to not sound like me, and God, I hope it's working. I'm also not making direct eye contact with her—she'd see right through me—and praying silently to every god Red's ever called on.

But it's true, she is. She needs blood. And I can hear Nikki giving the notification now, telling them to be prepared for a hypovolemic exsanguination, but Keating Memorial isn't going to be prepared for this.

I look at Ken, I look at Red, leaning over and whispering to her, begging her to stay, not to leave her alone. I look at the look on Buffy's face.

“Will, is there anything you can do?” B's whispering it, but, remember, super-hearing. Red is just shaking her head, crying. I look down at Kennedy. We're going to lose her.

Fuck it.

I stand up—half-stand, anyway, I've gotten good at standing in a moving truck—stop the line of Ringer's, unscrewing it from the medlock.

“What's her blood type?”

“A positive,” Red says absently. “Same as mine.”

“What are you doing?”

“Risking my license,” I answer. And I turn, going into the cabinet that holds our personal gear.

Now, first of all, let me tell you something. I know exactly what goes bump in the night. Retired Slayer, here, people. I'm not stupid. And LA has a decent vamp population. Hell, I've staked one or two on the job—I saved Nikki's ass, once. It's the reason she works with me, puts up with my shit. She owes me. And I know that sometimes, there's nothing you can do but pump as much blood in, as fast as you can.

I found out a while ago that my blood type is O-negative. Universal donor; I can give blood to anyone out there. Which is great—though I'm screwed if I need a donor myself. And I'm also a Slayer. Slayer blood in a normal human, dying of exsanguination, gives them a decent shot... But we're not allowed to carry blood, or give it in the field. Major no-no. Like, lawsuit up the ass the size of God no-no. It's why I ride back here alone with my vamp vics.

But this is personal, and fuck it. I reach into my personal bag, into the cooler I keep at the bottom. There's a one-liter bag—still says “Saline” on it—that's looking a little red for just salt water. Or a lot red. Every week or two I fill a bag with my blood, put it in the truck, wait for it to be needed. And God knows Kennedy needs it. If she weren't a Slayer, she'd be dead by now.

“What are you doing?” she asks again, and it's more forceful this time. I turn, look at the monitor. Anywhere but B.

“If she doesn't get blood, now, she dies. I'm not allowed to give blood. We don't carry it.”

I pull it out, spike it, hang it, connect it to the saline lock. I can feel their stares on me. I look up, hand the bag to the redhead. Thank God B is closer to the back door; last thing I need is to get any closer to her than I have to. But Red passes it to her. “Squeeze,” I tell her. “From the top.”

The look on B's face is priceless, but I have to watch Ken's breathing, watch the monitor. She's still under 70. Come on, come on... come up...

The back of the bus is noisy: there's the road noise, the sirens, the chatter coming out of my radio. But the only thing I can hear is Red, eyes flowing tears, whispering desperate pleas to Kennedy to hold on, to stay with her. It's breaking my goddamn heart.

I check our location out the side window; we're three minutes out from the hospital. I look to the bag; there's a good six, seven minutes worth of volume in there, maybe five if she squeezes hard. I shut my eyes, hard. I know what I have to do, but... If this doesn't work...

I turn my head back to the pass-through, the window between the driver's cab area and the back of the box. “Nikki,” I say, soft—soft enough that I really, truly hope they don't hear me in the back. “Nikki, 10-20.”

“You wanna say that again?”

“Slow down, Nix. I need more time with her.”

“Are you insane?”

“Just do it, okay? I'll... explain later.” Ten-twenty. Cops would call that their location. For us it means slow it down; no lights, no sirens. Christ, I hope I'm making the right choice here. She keeps going for a second... and I feel her ease off the gas. She's got the lights, but she's rolling a lot slower now.

I look down at the monitor. Her pressure's up! It's just a little bit, but it's up to 72/53. Thank fucking God. I can't help but smile, letting a grin spread across my face. B's looking straight at me, now, and her eyes are that cold steel she gets when she's getting ready to kill something.

“Why are we slowing down?” she asks, voice just as cold as her eyes. She heard me talking to Nikki.

“So that that whole bag goes into her instead of just half of it.” I shrug. “We walk in there with blood going into her veins, I face jail time. No slap on the wrist, no 'don't do it again.' I go to prison.” I glance down at the monitor and smile again.

“So what are you smiling about?” 78/55. She's gonna be alright.

“Her BP's coming up, and she's stopped throwing PVCs.”

“In English?”

“She's gonna be fine.” Yes! Twenty-fucking eight!

I look up, start the paramedic game. “You guys know her?” They both nod.

Red manages to choke out, “I'm her life partner.” I can't quite suppress a smile. Nice to see you two made it. I pick up the paperwork, looking down, looking busy.

“What's her name?”

Chapter Text

We pull into Keating Memorial a few minutes later, but by now the whole liter of good ol' Faithy is in Ken, her blood pressure's up to the mid-eighties, and I've hooked her back up to salt water. The trauma nurse is standing in the bay, waiting for me, and I kick out the passengers as I lay the fluid bags on Ken's chest.

“Whaddaya got?”

“Twenty-three year old female, punctures to the jugular, possibly from a barbecue fork. I think she lost a lot of blood; we didn't find much on-scene, but her BP went down to the mid-sixties. Also sinus bradycardia, family says she normally has a slow pulse; she was throwing PVCs, but she stopped when her pressure hit the seventies. She's got some facial trauma in the mix...” I'm letting medic-Faith take over, giving up all the gory details. Well, except the part where I saved her life, but I've been-there-done-that with the penitentiary system and besides, they wouldn't understand. I have to repeat the story six or eight times as different staff flow into Trauma Resus, but that calm feeling settles in as I do. The truth of the matter is, I love my fucking job.

Thankfully, the trauma ward at Keating doesn't allow visitors during the initial assessment, and I'm hiding out in there writing my report. Also panicking. I let Nikki take care of the stretcher, cleaning off the blood, wiping it down with bleach wipes. Finally I get Becky, the nurse, to sign for me, separate the copy for registration, and pray to hell Buffy and Red aren't standing outside waiting.

But they are, and what's worse, Giles is standing right next to them. I pull my hat low over my eyes, try to slip past them, but it's like they're waiting for me, and I feel a hand on my arm. Thank God it's not B's.

“I... wait.” I squeeze my eyes shut, stop, turn around. Red is crying, still, and trembling a little, but she seems to have it more or less together, and her grip on my sleeve is vice-like. “I... just wanted to say... thank you.” Her eyes are drilling into mine, but all I can do is look away under the stale blue fluorescent lights.

I gulp, starting to sweat. With the three of them here, and no Kennedy to distract them...

“It's okay. It's what we do.” I turn again, to leave.

“Wait!” She steps up again. “I really... is there anything we can... Can I at least buy you coffee?”

“No. It's okay, really. Don't sweat it.” I disentangle myself from her, keep my eyes on the floor as I make my way back to the bay, swearing all the while in the back of my head. Please don't. Please. Not after all this.

Nikki still isn't back with the stretcher, yet, and I dully realize I left my keys in the ignition, which means she has both sets—and I have none. Fuck. Fuck fuck doublemeat FUCK. I check the doors, but Nikki's a good girl, and they're both locked. Now, there's a way to break into these things through the side window, right? You just gotta...

I'm playing with the side window—usually it's 'push in, open, reach around and open door from the inside'—when I hear the footsteps approaching. They're not B's—thank God—and they don't sound like Red's, either. Reluctantly, I stop playing with the window and try to lean nonchalantly against the side of the truck as he rounds the back of the vehicle. So screwed.

“Miss... Excuse me.” Reluctantly I turn to see him.

“Yeah?”

“I just wanted to say... thank you. Very much. For helping Kennedy.”

“And you are...?” Because we've never met. Not once. You haven't stitched up half a dozen cuts I'd rather not remember and one particularly nasty broken wrist. Nuh-uh.

“Giles. Rupert Giles.” He extends his hand; I shake it, making mine as limp as possible.

“Alice.” Technically, not a lie. Middle name—gotta love it. I pray to God my stethoscope is still covering my last name stitched into my shirt.\

“I... I would like to ask you something, if it... isn't too personal.”

“Don't know until you ask, Rupe.”

“I... how did you know?”

“How did I know what?”

“What happened to her.”

“What do you mean? My guess is she got mugged, the guy had some kinda meat fork...”

“We both know that's not what happened. You don't need to pretend you don't know, Alice.”

“Don't know what?”

“What kind of paramedic, exactly, carries a fresh unit of blood in her personal bag?”

Deep breath. I'm so screwed.

“How long, exactly, before my bosses find out about that? Since I'll be going to jail for it, I'd like a little head start.” Practicing medicine without a license, use of a non-FDA approved treatment...

“I have no intent to tell them. But you risked that all tonight for a girl you'd never met. It's... extraordinary.”

My cheeks burn hot and it's a minute before I realize I'm blushing. Some part of my head is wondering if my glamour covers that, too; I hope it does. You never called me that before, G. Still, I gotta play it cool. Instead I shrug it off.

“I've seen that sort of thing too many times. No blood at the scene, ER doesn't wanna assume exsanguination if you can't see it... People die from it.” Deep breath. “The blood is clean, for the record. I get... it tested. I just...”

He nods, appreciatively. Pauses. Looks at me. “You know, I work for an... an organization. We could really use some medical...”

“I like my job, here, Mister... Grant?”

“Giles.”

“Mister Giles. So, thank you, but no thank you.” Come on, Nikki, where the fuck are you?

“Still, I would like you to take my card. If there is anything, anything at all that we can do for you...”

“No, really, it's okay. This is what I do now.” Oh shit. That one word, that one slip of the tongue, and he'll know, he'll see it's me, oh shit, oh fuck, oh fuck me sideways.

“Am... Am I making you uncomfortable?” He can see the tension, but I go with it. I nod.

“I'm just not very good with... people...” Nikki! Come the hell on already!

He smiles, that damn British smile. “Of course.” But he's still holding out his card. “Please, I do insist. Take my card. Really. We'd very much like to find a way to... Kennedy is very precious to us.”

I take the card, slip it in my shirt pocket.

“No sweat.” I hear the ER doors swish open, and the rattle of wheels; thank God. Thank God thank God thank God. Nikki. I walk past Giles to the back doors of the truck, where my partner is smiling at me, dangling my keys in the air.

“Forget something, Fa...”

“Yeah!” I cut her off before she can blow my cover. “Hey, I left those in the ignition. Thanks,” I say, cutting her off before she can drop my deadliest secret. I open the back door of the truck, leaning in next to her as she starts to load the stretcher. “We are getting the fuck out of here,” I hiss. We load it, and I climb in the back, checking what we need. The tour is almost done, but we need to restock the liter bags and the IV start kits. Damn. Double damn.

But my partner has vanished into thin air again—getting a smoke, I think—and so it's on me. Giles is standing off on the side, watching me, pretending to just be enjoying the air. He's looking at me with a slight confusion—thank God, he doesn't get it—and I turn my eyes down as I close the door, heading back into the ER. Please, please don't let me run into...

I see her boots, walking toward me, but I dodge a little, slip into the crew room. Thank God it's a combination door; I shield it with my body as I open it, slipping inside, nominally to get some fluids and IV start kits, but mostly to avoid seeing any of them. All three of them could threaten everything I've built here, everything I've...

“Hey Faith.” I turn around, nearly gasping. Rob Tiegen is sitting at the table in the crew room, playing around with his laptop. I smile, briefly, trying not to shudder. Thank God. He looks at me, curious. “You okay?”

“Five by five, Rob. You know me.” But I guess I don't look it.

“You sure? You look like you just had a rough call.”

I go with it, nod. “Trauma. Girl nearly bled to death.”

“She okay?”

I nod. “She's gonna be fine. Just... harrowing.” But not because of her.

He laughs. “What, Lehane afraid of a little trauma jobbie? What'd she do, come after you or something?”

“Nah, just, the family was all up in my space. Gotta get away.”

He smiles, though. “Then good job. Gold star for Lehane. You want a juice in your lunchbox?”

“Fuck you, Rob,” I say jovially. He blows me a kiss. I catch it, then fake a vomit. Rob is the closest guy to a brother I have in EMS.

I nod absently, go to the cabinet, grab the things I need. It's a minute before I realize I'm trapped: the one door in is the one door out, and if she's waiting for me outside the door, I'm pretty much screwed. I take a minute, though, calm my nerves, take a deep breath...

They're talking, standing outside the clear doors of the ER bay. I can hear them, muffled by the glass, but not silenced. I can't help myself. I stop and eavesdrop.

“How is Willow?” A muffled Giles. So proper.

“She'll get through it. She got pretty scared, but it looks like Kennedy will be okay, so she's holding up.”

“Yes. I believe that paramedic saved her life.”

“Giles, she had to know. At least about vampires.”

“Yes, I know. I asked her about it. I believe she might be a budding Wicca.”

I could hear the shock in B's tones. “What, like Will?”

“Oh no. Nowhere near as strong as Willow. But I couldn't help but sense a bit of magic about her...” The charms. Oh shit.

“That's weird. I couldn't... I dunno. I think she's... Something feels odd about her, Giles.”

“She's aware of the world around her. Isn't that unusual enough?”

“No, I mean... almost...” She shakes her head, that blond mane shuddering. “It's almost like she's...”

“Like she's what?”

She shakes her head again. “It's nothing. I think it's residual. Maybe her contact with Kennedy.” Shit. She's picking me up on Slaydar.

Okay, time to motor. I burst through the doors, murmur an apology, ignore their attempts to engage me, open the side door of the ambulance, throw the supplies on the stretcher, jump out, and poke my head up front. Nikki is sitting in the passenger's seat again; I slip around the front of the truck, get in on the driver's side. I start the engine, kick it into drive, pull away almost fast enough to leave skidmarks.

“Wow, you really have trouble accepting praise, huh?”

“You know me, Nix. Humble as a churchmouse.” Nikki just nods, and I pull into traffic, hoping to hell my heartbeat comes back down from hummingbird rates.

Chapter Text

We ride in silence for a minute as I regain my composure, slowing down the hell-ride. Nikki sits for a minute, like she's turning something over in her mind.

“Spill it, Nix, you've got brain-face. What's bothering you?”

“Faith... remember...” I hear her take a deep breath. “You remember that night that... something... jumped out at me? Something... scary, and... you...” I look at her, silently. This is the first time she's brought it up since it happened.

I nod. “Yeah, what about it?”

“I... is that what almost happened to me?”

Hmm. Wasn't expecting this line of questioning. Still, honesty, policies... “Yeah.”

“What... what was that?”

“You really wanna know, Nikki?” There's a pause, but she nods. Screw it. “It was a vampire.”

“What, like Anne Rice?”

“No. Like the kind that almost killed that girl.”

“And... you... you've seen them before?”

I nod again. “Dealt with them before, too. It's a big, scary world out there, Nix.” She's silent again for a while, staring out the window, her brain churning.

“Why do you always make me drive when you get a patient like... like her?”

I suck in a little air. Now, Nikki and me, we're pretty tight, she's a good chick, y'know? She's got my back. But part of me... part of me just isn't ready to tell her what I do for them. But... in the end... fuck it all.

“Nix, let's say—hypothetically—that you're working with someone, someone you like, who, well... they're not doing everything exactly by the book. Nothing bad, in fact, it's helpful, but it's... kind of illegal, what she does. It saves people's lives, but if anyone found out about it...”

“Is what she's doing right?”

“What she—or he—is doing... well... it could land her in deep, deep shit. Or him. But the point is... even if it helps people, do you really want to know? 'Cause one day they're gonna catch her, and then she's going to be utterly screwed. Would you want to know? 'Cause when they catch her, they're going to ask you some pretty tough questions, too. Do you want to have to lie to cover yourself?”

She contemplates that, too. That's what I like about Nikki: I dive into things, but she's always thinking, always processing things before she makes decisions.

“I think... I think if I trusted the person, I wouldn't need to share her secret.”

“I know. You're a sweet kid. But... I don't want to put you in that position.”

“Just... promise me you don't hurt anyone.”

“Hey, I'm strictly a no-hurting person. Well, unless someone tries to bite my partner.” I flash her the Faith Special, that smile that charms the pants (literally) off of so many people. It works; she's grinning a little bit too.

~*~*~*~

The tour ends uneventfully, with Nikki asleep in the passenger seat and me a million miles away behind the wheel. At first I'm thinking about my close call with B, trying to work out why exactly my stomach starts a revolution when I think her name. Eventually, though, my mind wanders off, and I barely notice the sky beginning to turn gray.

Eventually I drive us back to Keating Memorial, real quiet-like, not wanting to wake Nikki. I've halfway adopted her as my little sister by this point, and my friendship with her means the world to me. Not that we were always like this.

See, in EMS, seniority is everything. It determines rank, pecking order, whatever—and when we met, I had four month's seniority on her as a medic. But Nix was an EMT for two years before she started her upgrade program, so she's clocked a lot more hours in the bus than I have, and I gotta admit, there are some things she knows that I never will.

So initially we didn't get along so great. We would nearly catfight over even the smallest shit—radio stations, where or whether to eat lunch, the best way to tape down an IV—and we would barely speak to each other to avoid name-calling. There was one night I came damn close to filling her boots with shampoo—and I'm usually not that petty.

But it all changed the night I saved her ass.

See, Nikki's problem is—or used to be—not seeing the big picture. I've watched her staring, studying the veins in a patient's arm to start an IV—while the poor woman stops breathing. So this one night we were going to a call—I think it came over as a gunshot—and we roll up on this guy laid out on the sidewalk, with another guy leaning over him. Cops are nowhere in sight, but Nikki hops out anyway, runs over to the scene.

Meanwhile I'm yelling at her to wait. First off, we don't know what happened or who this guy is, but more importantly the back of my neck is trying to stand up and run away. Definitely a not-good sitch. So me being the dumbass I am, I get out of the truck—leave the keys, fuck it, who cares—and run over, just in time to watch the vamp look up—seems our “bystander” was taking a free drink from our vic—and decide he would prefer a fresher meal. Before I could make it over there, he's got her pinned up against a wall and he's going into game face.

So I hit him with the radio. Sure, okay, Slayage-wise it's not a weapon of choice, but I don't carry stakes on tour—at least I didn't then—and besides, it was fun seeing the word “Motorola” stamped backwards on his bumpy-ass face. “Hey ugly,” I tell him, “pick on someone your own size.”

Now, mind you, this guy is maybe six two, hundred and ninety, and lean. And here's me, staring him down. So he launches himself at me—Thank God, I think, Nikki's okay, but now I'm on my ass and we're wrestling. I glance up, and Nix is just staring at us, halfway in shock.

“Nikki! Get the hell out of here!” She doesn't budge. Meanwhile it's fists and knees with this guy, and I'm out of practice, so I'm taking my fair share of hits. “Nikki! Run!”

Finally she snaps out of it, and she's on her way, screaming a 10-13 into the radio. The vamp and I are still going round and round, but now I'm smiling and looking for a piece of wood. She's out of the alley. Now it's game time.

“You've got nothing to smile about, little girl,” he says, and I suckerpunch him in the gut, hard. He stumbles, and I go off on him, kicking him and putting him on the ground. Finally I spot a rotted wooden pallet on the ground, and without hesitating I snap off a piece that doesn't look too rotten. He's staring at me with this shocked look on his face, and I gotta admit, it's pretty priceless.

I can't help but smile down at him. “You want to know where you went wrong, ugly?” I can hear the sirens growing nearer, so I guess there's no time for foreplay. “You can fuck with me all you want.” I plunge the stake into his chest, and before he's dust I lean in to growl. “But no onefucks with my partner.” Then he's ashes to ashes, and I'm panting. When I finally turn, Nikki is standing at the mouth of the alley. I can see she's trying to process, but I hit her with my best, Faith-est smile.

“Thought I told you to beat it, Nix.”

“What... where...” Time to lie.

“He ran down the alley.” I came up to her, watching the poor brunette tremble. “You alright?”

She nods. She's shaking—that's the adrenaline—but she's okay. Still, she reaches out to me, not quite touching me. “Your face...”

“I'm fine.” I flash her another smile, and I finally the first of the sirens is coming up the block. I give her a quick hug; it's not my style, but she looks like she could use it. “Pull it together, kid. Cavalry's here.”

They wound up sending us home, after a quick check at the ER—or rather, after I watched her get checked out; I refused to let the doc touch me. I took her to a bar, though, rather than her apartment, and the two of us got pretty shit-faced. It was a chance to finally open up and just be people with each other instead of posturing—and since then, if we're both working, she won't turn out with anyone else.

Yeah. Nikki's alright.