A SMALL SILVER CROSS

DISCLAIMER: I don't own them, Joss does. Please don't sue - I'm not making any money off this.

SUMMARY: Set after "Sanctuary" on "Angel". Redemption - hell, contrition! - isn't as easy as it's made out to be. Faith has a lot of thinking to do, and a lot of time on her hands to do it in.

SPOILERS: "Sanctuary" on Angel, and very slight for the big finale for "Buffy".

RATING: R for language. Or PG-13 for language, depending on how bad you consider the language to be. Oh, and some violence.

PAIRINGS: This is mostly solo Faith exploration stuff, but, hey, there's always B/F and F/Wesley in there... nothing too overt, but the gal's trying, you know?

FEEDBACK: Love it, thanks. v. -- writer's block's a bitch.

ARCHIVE: Those who have blanket permission and list archives. Everyone else ask first, please.

DEDICATION: To the idiot who set off the fire alarm for the second time this evening... at 2am. Thanks mate. 'Cause, like, we didn't have enough fun waiting around in the cold and rain at 11pm the first time round. No, we're grateful. Really. Grrrrrrrr...

It's easy to give your life.

Okay, maybe not easy - but not as hard as you would suppose. You don't have a lot of time to think about it, after all. Usually it's a split second decision - do I do it? Do I save him and die in the process? Do I take her place - 'cause sometimes, hey, a chick's worth it too - and get beaten into a pulp instead of her? Once you commit yourself, you get sucked right in - there's no way out. Blow after blow after blow lands and you do your best to dodge out of the way, but deep down inside, you know that it's over. And you accept that.

See, I've done that. I guess that should tell you how easy it is, huh? Even I managed it. Even I got my ass in gear to get on my knees and plead for some chick's fucking life. Not that it did me any good whatsoever of course, but then it was up in a kick, and then a punch, and then another kick... and I figured that while he was busy ripping me into little shreds she'd get herself sorted out and leg it out of there.

The stupid cunt wanted to be in the thick of it too, though, and got back into it. Ah, well. She got her wish - got ripped into little itty bitty pieces in front of me. So much for being a hero.

I still do it on occasion - I still see someone I'd be willing to do the suicidal dash into the fray for. Someone who might be worth those stupid few moments of pain... But what does that tell me - that I'm a good person, or that I don't mind pain? Somehow, I see myself more as a masochist than a hero. Or maybe a sadist... Whichever. It's the pain that interests me.

Pain... yes. I admit that - what chick wouldn't? You think I don't mind it rough? God, I'm a fucking Slayer, of course I like it rough! Someone to push up against - someone who won't break. Oh, and I've broken a few in my time, some literally.

What can I say? It was fun.

Pain I like. Pain I enjoy - pain I savour. Death... death is obviously not something I've done yet. No little mini-Faiths running around, or whatever the next Slayer will look like. Makes me wonder just what those Council guys were going to do with me - drown me every day, maybe? End up with an army of Slayers... a wonder it has never been done before. Sloppy, sloppy... always waiting for their heroes to be made, instead of taking the initiative.

But anyway. Not that I give a fuck what the Council thinks anymore... and they've shown me exactly how much they cared for me. So you could say that they weren't really on my top 10 list of people I'd be willing to do the nasty for. And no, I don't mean that in the fun way.

Angel - now, him I can't figure out. The guy's so fucking perfect, you know? Forget being five by five, he's got the whole tortured soul thing going soooo right. Help anyone in pain, no matter what they've done - 'cause, hey, he's done worse! I wonder what B told him... I know that it was nasty as hell. Wesley told me... yeah, after I apologised. See, I could do that.

Dying's easy. Deciding to die for someone's easy - Angel, for instance. B, even after she gutted me like a fish. Maybe... maybe even Wes. I don't know. I'd have to think about that one. Giles? He was nice... not like Angel, not tortured, but nice... and he cared - cares - about B so much... it makes me wish that Wesley cared that way for me.

I heard him you know. "That girl's got evil in her." Maybe I do. But it hurts to hear someone having given up on you so completely. It makes you perverse with determination - you have to prove otherwise. Maybe even die for him, to prove otherwise.

Except that there would be no pure motive there, which would make it all so horribly unfair.

See, that's the easy part. Dying for someone's easy 'cause you don't even have to love them. You just have to be angry with them - maybe even just disgusted with yourself - and want to prove otherwise. To stand up and say, "hey, goddamnit! If I was such a fuck-up, would I be doing this? Would I?"

The answer, if you're me, is - of course. Perverse... sick and twisted. Dying's easy.

Apologising is not.

Does that mean that I care for him?

One week ago - one month ago - three hours ago - I'd stood in the middle of my cell and held my hands together.

"Wesley. Sit, please."

And he'd stared at me, guileless. "I'd rather not."

And so I'd stood too. "Please?" Smiled a little more but didn't bat the lashes. They'll never work on him again.

"I, um... it's uncomfortable."

And I had known, abruptly, what he was talking about.

The human body's a curious thing. It can take so much punishment and still function... Kakistos showed me that. After eight hours I could still function perfectly well - he wanted me mobile and relatively sane so I could see what he did to her. What he did to my Watcher - and what he was going to do to me.

I would have offered my life in exchange for hers, but I knew that I would be taking the easy way out - die first, quickly, and have her die slowly later. Of course, I could choose the other way around...

Does that mean that I had loved her?

I'd taken a step closer to him and ignored the involuntary flinch. Well, that would take years to take away, wouldn't it? Maybe it would always be there... maybe it would toughen him up. I'm tough now, aren't I? I'm bad. I'm Bad. I'm all tough now.

"Wesley..."

"Did you want something?"

And what I find impressive is that he had been able to look me in the eye. Whereas I, of course, had looked away. No, things aren't five by five. Things will never be good again. I'd had fun with the tips of his hipbone - either side, shattered when I was experimenting with 'blunt'. Still lets him be mobile, but he has trouble sitting down... so, naturally, I had bound him.

That way, I could shatter his right cheekbone as well.

It had been swollen - almost completely obscuring his eye. I'd been in here for a week, and already he was having trouble seeing. Oh, I had no doubt the doctors will fix him.. Maybe Angel would have even let him have a bit of that lovely healing blood of his. Not too much - wouldn't want Wes here turning feral on us.

It's so easy to fall into the old patterns. To think of people as weak just because you can hurt them. To think of them as wrong just because they've given up on you.

I shattered bone. I broke skin and I licked his blood from my fingers.

And I enjoyed it.

"Wesley."

Yes, he'll always know that I'm an idiot, won't he? I can't put a sentence together... I bet you think you can do better. I bet that you think you can come up with better words. But go on. I dare you. You do what I did - and, remember, you gotta enjoy it, honey - and then you be sorry about it afterwards. And you try and explain that.

"Oops. Wes. I know I tortured you... and I know I had soooo much fun. But, like, can we be cool? 'Cause I'd feel sooo much better if I didn't have this on my conscience..."

No, wait. "Oh, Wes. I am sorry. Truly. Can we go have a drink?"

You try and have the word 'sorry' in there somewhere and it all goes out the fucking window. It's like you're spitting in their face - B showed me that. And, you know, it's not even supposed to be about me. It's supposed to make them feel better... but not me. What's the point of that?

"Wesley..."

"Yes, Faith?"

And there hadn't been even a flicker in his eyes when he'd said my name. It was as if I didn't matter anymore. No - it was because I didn't matter anymore. I'd hurt him as much as I could, and he'd survived. He'd gotten through it. And now... anything I said right now wouldn't matter, because for him I didn't exist.

"I'm sorry I tortured you, Wes. I was going through a phase. No one understands me... but I'm all better now."

I didn't know what to say - I didn't know how to make it better. So I did the only thing I could think of - I told him the truth. "I..."

"You're sorry?" Just a hint of sarcasm... not too much. Don't want to piss off the psycho.

"I want to be."

Which was pretty much the only thing that could have had an effect. Not what he expected, certainly. Maybe apologies? Pleas for forgiveness? Not honesty. Not now.

"You - you want to be?" He had sat down then, wincing at the pain.

And I had moved toward him. And I had sat down next to him. And I had carefully turned him to face me. His entire right cheek had swelled up - I could see where the bone had shattered. And he'd had such nice cheekbones as well... now why did I have to go and ruin them?

"I'm trying. It's ... it's hard to care." If I had pushed, even a little, my finger would have disappeared into the bruise that was his cheek. But I didn't. I didn't.

"Why? Why must it be so hard for you to care about pain?"

And it was oh, so much like him! To try and counsel. And he didn't care himself. Not anymore...

"I care about pain. I just... I just can't be sorry for it." And, before he could question further, I had placed my finger against his lips. That way, the temptation to push was lessened. "It would be so easy to do something huge to prove it to you - to show you how sorry I am."

"But you're not sorry."

"No."

"So it would be a lie."

"Yes."

"But I wouldn't know that, would I?"

I'd taken my hand away. "No."

"And yet, here we are, and you're not doing anything overly grand." He'd paused. "Why?"

And I had managed a tiny, tiny smile - still some life left in the old girl yet. "Because I want it to be true this time. I want... I want..." I shook my head. I wasn't entirely sure what I wanted. But it sure wasn't what I had done before - what was expected. Some big, noble sacrifice.

Actions speak louder than words. But sometimes, words are needed.

"What do you want?"

"I don't know." I still hadn't known what to say. "I want to be sorry."

"But I might not know it if you were."

"No. But I would."

He'd stared at me wordlessly for a moment, then taken my hand and pressed it to his cheek. I had felt the swelling throb against my palm... it wasn't pleasant. "It hurts," he'd said quietly.

"Yes."

"Everything hurts."

"Yeah."

He'd stood and moved to be in front of me. Released my hand and undid his trousers. I had slipped my own hands inside, to rest on his hips. I could feel the swelling there as well - feel the bone move underneath my hands.

He didn't wince. "That also hurts."

I couldn't raise my voice above a whisper. "Yes."

Wesley - Wesley! - and I'd thought him a coward, a weakling - put his hands over mine and pressed inward deliberately.

I felt his pain shoot through his body, clench his hands around mine. "I caused that."

"Yes."

I hadn't known he could hiss.

I don't think he had known either.

He had removed his hands and so had I, and he'd zipped up his pants, sitting back down next to me. I'd looked at him then. "I want to be sorry. I'm trying."

"I know." And he'd smiled a little, I think. "I'll be here to show you why you need to be. Why you need to try."

Saving someone's life at the cost of your own is easy. I saved my first Watcher that way - or, I think I did. I tried to. I saved her for a little while... but, then, she wanted to save me too. Or maybe she just wanted the quick death for herself. Whatever.

See, I've done something harder. I've apologised - or, at least, started to.

You know, for once in my life, I don't want to lie about this. I don't want to rush into it and say I'm so sorry when, really, I'm not. See, Angel was right. You've got to really want redemption - 'cause it sure as hell ain't gonna just walk up to you. It ain't gonna let itself be caught.

And so Wesley wants to visit me... or torture me, whatever. Maybe it'll be torture when I can't stand it anymore. And when it hurts to look at him and see him in pain and know that I did that, then I would have won. Then maybe things will start to get back to being five by five. But they sure as hell ain't ever going to be peachy again - if they ever were.

Wes was easy. Well, I say easy in that he'd at least come and see me - I could at least say something. But B, once again, doesn't want to come and visit. She doesn't want to see me ever again... maybe she'd rather I was dead. Maybe she was willing to do it herself, I don't know. I wouldn't want her to - I was there. I'm still there now. And it's not a nice place to be.

I wish... I wish I could do something for her to show her how sorry I am. I wish I could somehow fix it and make it all better. But I can't. And that's the thing that makes it all better.

She won't see me. She won't talk to me. And so I wait - night after night after night - and try to be sorry for what I did to her. Try to be sorry for her sake, because I love her. Because I want to love her.

Maybe it would be easier if she was here and I could put my hand over her heart and hear it beat, and know that I might have broken it by doing what I did.

God, listen to me. I sound as bad as Angel. It's so easy to get all poetic about stuff... to make it all sounds so pretty with nice words that don't actually mean anything.

I can't feel her pain because I'm not her. Even when I was in her body I wasn't her... all I can do is try to imagine. But that's hard too, you know? It's hard to care. It's hard to care when you've trained yourself not to.

I wrote her a letter - yeah, complete track change, so fucking what. I wrote her a letter, and then I tore it up. The stuff I said to Wesley sounds better aloud I think... better when I cry with him. Better when he talks to me, and blames me. 'Cause I know she blames me, but I don't know if she cares - and I don't know if I care. How the hell do I figure that out? How the hell do I apologise if she won't be around for me to try?

I sent her a cross. Not many places you can find one inside, so I asked Cordelia to buy one for me. She didn't say anything - she wouldn't even come inside my cell to give it to me. She just left the little box right outside where I could look at it and ask what I thought of it.

It was pretty enough - silver, simple. Blessed by the local priest for that extra kick, or so Cordelia tells me. Whatever. It's not about how strong or impressive it is - it's about the thing itself. I wanted her to know that I wanted her safe.

She sent the package back unopened. Guess prison mail isn't really that hard to mistake for anything else... no chance of opening it accidentally.

It's easy to give your life for someone. Easy to die in one little instant - to make the choice and carry it through and know that it would all be over soon. No matter what you think about the afterlife - and I, personally, have no fucking clue about it after all I've seen - after a while, you stop being afraid. After a while, you just accept it. Death is just the door to moving on. Not that hard to cross. Not if you care for someone.

I care for Buffy. I do. And I would do something huge for her - I would save her life, even if it cost me my own.

Maybe especially if it cost me my own. I'll be dead, after all - no stupid conscience to trouble me then. Maybe it's just worms for me... man, that'd suck. All this angst, just for worms and earth. It'd be kinda fitting, though. I was sooooo bad, not even Hell wanted me.

I care for Buffy. I do. I would die for her. And for Wesley... and, yes, for Angel.

But I'm not dead, am I? I'm sitting here, my back cold because the walls are cold. I never realised just how cold it was in prison... how lonely. I'm not allowed a bunkmate - not a roommate, not a prison mate - because I'm too dangerous. Solitary confinement until they see some good behaviour.

Does catatonia count as good behaviour? I don't do anything they don't tell me to do. In the month that I've been here I've learned to sit perfectly still and do absolutely nothing. It's an effort - it costs me a lot. But it means that I don't do things I could. It means that I'm not amusing myself, or having fun in some small way.

See, I could even beat the legendary Angel at this angst thing. I could...

"Faith?"

So strange, the people that come to visit. She doesn't even have a bruise on her. I wonder if my eyes are still black, or if I healed as fast as I thought I did. One month, though... a long time, even for humans.

"You sent my package back."

And no, I didn't look at her. There was a small rustle, though, the sound of paper and packaging tearing. "Yeah. But Cordelia gave it to me again here."

That's right. I'd forgotten that I wouldn't take it off Cordelia. I'd forgotten that maybe I should apologise to her as well... but I'm not sorry. I need to be sorry for the big things first, before I can think about the little things.

Cordelia brings me doughnuts sometimes. I almost think that sometimes she understands... and then I look at her and laugh to myself. Of course she doesn't. She doesn't need to make herself feel sorry... does she? Does everyone do this - try and convince themselves to care?

"It's... it's real pretty, Faith."

I said nothing. What could I say? I'd torn up the letter I wanted to send her, and I knew she had no wounds I could touch.

"Why?"

I couldn't stay quiet at that. "Why what? Why did I do any of it? Why did I hand myself in? Why didn't I write?"

I looked at her. She was bruised, but not from me. From someone else - Adam, maybe? Riley? Angel, even? Who did she fight that hurt her as badly as I did? Little B... bad little scrap.

"No, Faith. Why send me the cross?"

Because I couldn't tell you I was sorry. Because I'm still not. Because I'm trying, goddamnit, what do you want from me?

"I don't know."

And you know what she did?

She took the cross and had the cell door opened. She stepped inside the cell - and, no, I wasn't meant to have been visited in my cell, but hey, would you let anyone this dangerous out anywhere? - and had the door locked behind her. And she walked up to me.

"Why did you send it to me?"

"To keep the demons away." To keep me away. To keep me from trying to make it right, because I know I'll just screw it up even more.

To die for someone's easy. All it takes is a second of courage. To live for someone - one whole lifetime, locked behind bars, mind numb and blank to everything except the lack of grief there - well, I'd say that that's much more difficult. A real killer, even. One whole life - no little shortcuts here and there - of atoning when you know that there's no atonement.

Dying for someone's easy, see. But living for someone takes a lifetime of courage... and I don't know if I have that much in me.

Buffy said nothing, finally, and turned and walked away. I don't know if she'd be back - how many years it would take for her to be back. But it was okay. Because I'd live for her, and for Wesley, and for Angel, and be sorry for what I did. Eventually.

I'd been afraid before, of not having the courage to face that life. I'm still afraid. But I can bear it a little better now, because if I clench my fist I can feel the small silver cross there... and I remember how she looked when she pressed it into my hand.

I know that it'll be hard. I know that it'll take a long while for me to be sorry. But, for now at least, I can keep at least some of my demons away.

I'll be okay.

Sooner or later, I'm gonna be five by five.

fin