Faith has never stopped to think about it. It's a rare, confusing moment, but after she dusts Kakistos Buffy gently attaches to her and offers a warm, comforting hug.
She dwells on the thought. The hug has a purpose, a genuine feeling behind it. The hug seems to say It's all okay because you're my friend. The hug murmurs I don't know what I'd do if I were you. The hug clearly mentions I love you, because no one else seems able to.
Or, at least, that's what Faith takes it for. That's what Faith hears in it when the blonde's arms wrap around her waist and she cries hopelessly into Buffy's shoulder. No one else is around. She can be weak.
Buffy's clothes smell like a comfort she hasn't seen in years; a desperate gentleness she hasn't been able to recognize since she cried like this when she was a little girl. Faith was never heartless like everyone always thought; never unfeeling or cold or numb. When you hold back the feelings, the feelings get you in the end. They sneak up on you and wrap around you in a numbing suffocation. They end you.
Kakistos is gone. And the feelings flood through the gates with a tempestuous fury.
But Buffy's warm hug feels like everything will be okay. For a few moments, smothered by the scent of cotton and leather enfolding around her, Faith is safe. Protected, and nothing can hurt her there.
Her Watcher is dead and avenged. Kakistos is slain. Against her fellow Slayer, squeezing gently at the other's hips as she cries, Faith is at brief peace.
