Faith Of The Fallen
Disclaimer:I own nothing but the concepts of this story and the characters created.
Spoliers:Some from season 7 and previous seasons
That sweet,depressing buffy music plays softly as the camera slowly pulls circles the room.It was like any five year old girls room,it has The paintings and drawings she made in her kindergarten class were tacked to the wall above her bed, creating an illusion of happy childhood bliss.There were stuffed animals and dolls which sat around the room,untouched,unloved,much like her.
Faith's voice enters the scene in a voice over
Faith: I dunno...it just isn't me
Mayor:Not you?Let me tell you something.Nobody knows what you are.Not even you,little miss-seen-it-all. the assesion isyour time to blossom and show the world what a powerful girl you are,I think of what you've done,what you will do...no father could be prouder
We rest on a picture of Faith as a little girl,by herself on the swings,looking somber,lost.
Faith: I guess you could say he was my father...not like my real one was ever there.But he was...he loved me and cared for me...like I never knew.I knew it was wrong...I knew what that he was wrong,that I was wrong...but I didn't want to except it.I couldn't except it...I needed him.He was the first to show me love,compassion.He knew me more than I knew myself...but he went away.Like everyone else.Like it or not...everyone leaves sometime...we can't stop it.We want to,but we can't.
pan across another picture,one of her and her father,both smiling happily.
Faith: my real dad wasn't all bad...he loved me and yeah,I loved him.But it just isn't enough sometimes
light floods the room,bringing a flashback
Shadows cast from the streetlight and trees outside danced across her face lightly as she sat next to her window, staring down at the driveway below.
Her parents had never been exactly calm. There were many heated arguments between them which replaced the once many tender ones. Faith had always thought that was just the way grown-ups were until she'd mentioned it to her best friends Annie and Mikey one day. Mikey's and Annie's parents never fought. They never stormed through the house and out to the car, driving off into the dark night.
She knew he wouldn't come back. She knew it as surely as she knew the sun would rise in the morning and her mom would get beat on her again,blaming her . He'd left lots of times before but this time it was different.
Each time before when he'd leave, he'd pause at the car and look up at her bedroom window before he got in and drove away. This time he didn't stop; he didn't seek out her pale face in the broken moonlight. He just left.
He thought he could slip away unnoticed into the deep darkness. He thought he could just walk away from the family that depended on him; leave them behind without a second thought. He was right, he could and he did, but his departure wasn't unobserved.
A single tear slid down Faith's cheek as she watched the car silently pull away from the house. She waited to see if he would turn around and come back but he never did. Quietly, she slipped back into her bed and burrowed beneath the comforter, a thousand thoughts swirling through her head as she tried to understand what had happened.
She must have done something. Maybe she hadn't tried hard enough or been good enough. It had to be her own fault that he would leave. Her fault alone.
Faith: We all hold the desire to want,to hold onto something forever and just make time stop so you can draw that perfect moment in your head before it begins to fade.Those moments that make us feel alive.
Fade in on the bronze.Pan across the floor of people slowly dancing with eachother.We rest on Angel and Buffy,dancing like the others,looking happy,safe in eachothers arms.The song is slow,sad,and they dance as if they're the only two in the room.
Buffy: (Softly) Promise me you'll never leave me.
He opens his eyes,a thoughtful expression coming over his face.He kisses her head and nods gently.
Angel: Nothing could take me away from you.
She smiles,rests her head on his chest and they continue dancing.
Faith: But it can't be that way...time is always moving,changing things.
Fade to a street with fire engines and busy workers milling around as Angel and Buffy stare at eachother with lost hope.
Faith:We're always waiting for the end,never knowing how or when it'll come.We hold onto the presious moments of life which actually seem to have meaning...always wanting more.
he turns,departing itno the mist that wahes over the street behind him until he's out of view.
cut to Oz's room,he's leaving
Willow : Oz... Oh, god. Oz...
Willow is left standing crying. Oz walks out and puts his bag in his van. He gets in and starts the van. He pauses then cuts the engine. Then he starts the van again and drives away.
Faith: Saddness Fades...but Pain,it's always there.It never leaves.It comes back one way or another always more visous than the last.Soon,your so overcome with grief that you shut down...not wanting to feel.
Shot of Tara and Willow first meeting,sitting in a circle with the other girls,talking about things they know nothing about.Willow and Tara lock eyes for a moment,each smiling warmly.Images pass as they begin exploring their relationship.
Faith: They sayFalling in love is beautiful...for some,I guess.We fall in love for only one reason...nothing in the world makes us feel so good.
Through this voice over it's easy to see that Faith has softend up,not sounding so cold.Images pass us of various complies enjoying the bliss of love.Anya and Xander,Willow and Tara,Riley and Buffy,Giles and Jenny,Giles and Olivia,Willow and Oz,Cordelia and Xander,Buffy and Angel.
Faith: Sometimes it doesn't matter who loves us...just as long as they make us feel less alone.
Shot fo Buffy and Spike,kissing at the Bronze
Flashback ofRiley leaving Buffy,Giles finding Jenny dead in his bed by the hands of Angelus,Oz leaving for the second time,tara having her brain sucked by Glory,Willow crying as she rocks back and forth with Tara in her arms,Spike crying as Buffy lies apon the rubble,having just sacrified herself.
Faith: We'll take what we can get...just as long as it helps us feel more alive...or feel at all.
Cut to a fist colliding with a mans Face.Pull back to reveal Faith,barefooted and fighting three harbingers,each cloaked and weilding knives.She's in a suite of a hotel,dressed in a a pair of low riding black jeans and a long sleeved black shoulderlesstop, her hair is free whipping aroond as she fights with stunning talent.
She had returned to Sunnydale about a week ago from L.A to help Buffy and the others with their fight against the first.She was here tonight,undercover,trying to get info out of a oracle, a friend of Willows from englans on how to defeat the First, unfortunately he was killed as she entered.
Shepushes the arm of a harbinger aside, spinning as she does and delivers a swinging backhand tohis face,sending himstumbling to the side and into the wall.Another swipes twice with his dagger.She ducks the first and leans to the side to avoid it.Grabing his arm,she twists it, imbeding the dagger in hischest andthen kicks him hard into the bar.
The first harbinger gets to his feet,throwing an outward cresent kick which she ducks,but gets hit by his fist as she comes back up.She counters with a spining heel kick which connects with his face,flipping him to the floor.
Faith: Ever wake up with the disturbing realization that you weren't dreaming?that what you've experianced in the worst nightmare was really happening?That by waking up you haven't really erased anything?Just...finally realising whats going on.
she doublesnap kicks an oncoming assailant, once in the midsection then the face. Finishing him off she brings her leg around, catching the back of his neck and forcing him to the ground. Kicking him he spins upward into the air, colliding with two other bringers.
Faith:You feel sorta...broken.numb.You bolt up in bed and don't break that position your in for hours.Thats cause you can't...you're toofrozen and terrified by the horror that is your life.
Another rushes her from the side, flailing crazily with his dagger, She disamrs him, twisting hiswrist and plunging his own dagger into his gut.Still holding onto him, she flips overhis still-standingbody, the knife tearing uphis abdomen and kicks the back. The bringers blodied body spinsalong the ground and crashes through a coffee table.she sizes up another,gives him a two hit punching combo, thengrabbing his robe hurls him into a mirror on the wall,shattering it.
A smaller one with a sword attempts the impossible that his brothers have all just died for. He tries to run her through and with a simple movement his word his in the wall. Taking him by the wrist she uses her free hand to punch him hard in the jaw and then brings her elobw back from the punch and connects it to the side of his head, throwing him head first into the television, glass from the monitor spilling across the once clean floor
Faith:House keeping aint gonna be happy
She looks to the doors as they're kicked in and more harbingers pour in.Her eyes widen,looking alarmed
Faith: It's never really ends.People always crave power.To be a step above the rest.Those types of people resort to anything to get what they want.what is it about people like that?what makes them come out of nowhere and do something completely crazy without thinking about the consequences?
She whips around,running across the room, hurling her body head first though the glass window.Thank god she's it's only a four story hotel.Too bad she's on the forth floor though.Sheglances franticlyaround her for soemthing to grab onto,something,anything.Glass rains around her and she continues to fall.
Faith:I don't know...maybe it's the desire to be free,never knowing when everything gonna just stop.I suppose it's normal.After all...there's nothing wrong with being a little crazy.
She continues falling,feeling like it was taking forever.She remembers the last time she fell from a such a height.Images shoot into her mind with a serene,warm white light.
She stands there on the roof,looking hurt emotionally and physically.Her eyes hold a dim glint of innocence,her face looking pensive and lost.She holds a hand over her wound,knowing it wouldn't stop the blood,but she was in shock.This person...the one she felt closest to her had just stabbed her and reality hit her cruely and it was devistating.She knew then she wasn't invincible.That she wasn't dreaming.She was fragile and wide awake.Buffy pulled it out,looking stunned at what she had just done.A small,almost proud smile forms over Faith's lips,looking at Buffy with affection.
Faith: (Weakly,but smiling) You did it...
she summons the last of her strength,grunting as she brigns her fist up and into Buffys face,sending her back.
Faith:Ya killed me...
She steps onto the ledge,looking down.Turning back to Buffy she smiles again at the event which was her downfall.
Faith:Wont help your boy though...
Buffy looked on with Sad eyes,stunned still,knowing what was coming.
Faith:Shoulda been there,B.
Her eyes wander,her vision becoming blury.She feels the pain now and the sick,sinking feeling in her gut.It was a high.An odd,horifying high.
She began moving backwards
Faith: (softly) Quite a ride...
she pitches back off the roof,falling downward.It seemed like forever,thoughts and memories which she didn't want to remember raced through her hed at an unbelievable rate,but she saw each one,givng time to reflect apon them as she fell.She had grown up so fast,going from one to eighteen in 60 seconds.It broke her heart and at the split second before she hit the bed of the truck...she wanted to die more than anything.The scene changes back to the present.
Faith: Falling seems to allow your mind the permission to let go,like your going too fast to realise that you actual have a 50/50 shot at dying.It's thrilling and exciting,but eventually...you have to land.
and She does.Right into the pool on the top of the third story.It takes her a moment to regain control of herself as she sinks down a little.She swims upward,breaking the surface with a small gasp and begins swiming to the side and gets out quickly,running across the tiled roofing to the fire escape.