Note: This is another story that I have been meaning to write for some time. It is just a little one-shot that takes place during season 4 of BTVS just after the episodes 'This Years Girl' and 'Who Are You' (4.15 and 4.16). Probably not the most original idea, but this is what I imagine Buffy doing after 4.16.
Like a Knife Through Butter
Buffy didn't know where Willow was, but she was glad when she opened the door to find her roommate missing. It had been a horrible couple of days, and not just because of what had happened physically. Emotionally she was a wreck. It had all started out so normally, at least by her standards, and then everything had come crashing down. Memories that she had tried hard to forget came flooding back and one of her greatest failures was back to haunt her.
Turning to the wardrobe the slayer opened it a knelt down beside her weapons chest. It took her a while to find what she was looking for. She had pushed it down underneath everything else just like she had pushed down the memories that went along with it.
"You tried to gut me blondie."
She had managed to keep it to herself at the time, how much the reminder had hurt. It cut like a knife, striking her deeply through all of the shields she had built as if they were butter.
"You remember this? I took it from Faith. Stuck it in her gut. Just slid in her like she was butter."
That had been when it started, when she had started pretending that it didn't hurt, that she didn't care.
"You killed me."
That moment still haunted her. It had been useless anyway. She had been the one to cure Angel, and still she had nearly killed the other slayer, had meant to. Was that how Faith had felt the first time when she killed. That terrifying horrible moment when she felt the knife push into her body, a human body, the body of someone who had once been a friend. That was long gone now. They had been close once, they only ones who really understood each other. But that was so long ago. She had pushed her memories of the other slayer so far down, so far away that she had forgotten her in her conscious mind.
"I kept having this dream, I'm not sure what it means, but in the dream this self-righteous blonde chick stabs me, and you wanna know why? She does it for a guy. I wake up to find the blonde chick isn't even dating the guy she was so nuts about before. I mean she's moved on to the first college beefcake she meets. Not only has she forgotten about the love of her life, but she's forgotten about the chick she nearly killed for him."
How had she forgotten, how had she been so heartless? It had only been a few months ago. How painful must it have been for Faith when she realised that she had been forgotten, waking up to find that the world had changed and she was all alone. It must have been like being stabbed all over again. Feeling the blade twist in her gut. And Buffy was the one twisting it.
"So go. Don't let me keep... Damn. Just when we'd made it so nice. Are you ever gonna take this thing out?"
As the dream came back to her Buffy cried. She cried for everything she had lost, for everything they both had lost, and for the friend that she had failed.