Disclaimer: I don't own it! Any of it, except the original thinking. Full credit goes to Joss and his team, and the actors for bringing it to life for me!
Author's Note: PLEASE REVIEW! I hope you like it…
Story Starter: Au, love triangle, Buffy/Faith/Angel. Begins in Sunnydale, no given time or series, just imagine Faith and Angel are both around but it's not really to do with the vampire-y events. Buffy and Angel are dating and Faith and Angel are friends. Story begins on the roof of a warehouse where they have just saved the world, Faith was good but a human was involved with the end of the world, and when they should have handed him into the police for meddling with spirits and spells and trying to destroy everything Faith killed him instead.
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Faith waited on the roof. For Buffy. What am I supposed to say anyway? Oh I'm so sorry I killed a guy, think you can forgive me? Again. There was the clattering of heels on the stairs and Faith turned to face her fate, it all rested in the hands of the one person she was desperate not to lose, the only one she ever cared for. There was a moment's contemplation for Faith. A moment which she used to contemplate the soft Swede jacket that Buffy wore, the jeans that clung to her long, slim legs, her black high-heeled boots and her stunning, if a little dishevelled, blonde curly hair. All things that were worth more than a moments thought- more thought than she'd ever to give to the clothes she herself wore.
"I don't know what to say Faith. I've given you all the forgiveness I have in me, you can't ask me for any more 'cause there isn't any. I'm through with this, beyond through with this, I was through with it last time you killed someone." Faith gulped her head spinning with right things to say and still she picked the wrong one, the thing at the forefront of her brain.
"Buffy you have…no idea. I needed your forgiveness but it wasn't enough." Buffy looked at her with a cross between anguish and hate.
"What more can I do Faith?!" She yelled. "What more do you want from me?"
"I need…I need…God you have no idea! What it's like here."
"Where Sunnydale? On top of this ex-vampire-ridden warehouse specifically or just generally on the hellmouth?" Her voice was verging hysterical as it wavered.
"Here in my head!" Faith yelled, "The other side Buffy. I think you must have gotten the good-slayer genes 'cause I got the craziness. Always in my head it's hell. There's no control, nothing's in control, nothing makes sense, once you've killed once you have to again to survive it's- I can't explain- nothing makes any sense any more, nothing you do, everything hurts and you hate everything. There's just pain and confusion, nothing means anything, you have no idea what it's like to-"
"Shut up!" Buffy yelled. "I know Faith. I killed Angel, and I should have died there with him. Nothing made sense. It was your choice it stayed that way." Faith choked back her retort, Buffy still didn't get it, it wasn't that simple, it never had been.
"I've been speaking to Angel…" She whispered, "While you were clearing up, he came up here to…" To make sure I didn't do anything stupid. She finished her sentence in her head. "He said there was no way you were gonna give me another chance. I just- please!"
"Faith I have given you chances, every chance I could. I don't think there's anything I can…even if I could, give me a reason why I should? What more can I give you? What more can you take?"
"Buffy I swear, you I never meant to hurt, of all people…you."
"Well you did." The words cut through her. Knifed Faith from the inside out, she gasped with the force of them.
"Buffy I'm so…please, just tell me how I can make it better. I'll do anything, please, just tell me what I can-" She broke, her voice cracked, she felt the tears falling before she knew what was happening, running down her face like empty rain drops. Buffy's face didn't soften though the tears hit her hard Faith never cries, she thought.
"Faith I don't think…there's anything I can do for you." She turned away and made to take her first step. It was harder than it looked. She turned back around. "But if there is anything I'll do it. I don't forgive you Faith, not this time, not yet. But I don't want to leave you here alone." Then she added with some resentment, "I don't think anyone deserves that."
Faith took hesitant, grateful steps towards Buffy, disbelieving as she reached her. They walked silently, together but apart, towards the stairs down from the roof. Angel was waiting at the bottom and Buffy was thankful, but not for his capacity as boyfriend, just yet, it wasn't the time or the place and it definitely wasn't a good time to leave a verging-on-suicidal Faith alone.
"What do you need me to do?" He saw Buffy's 'business' face on and recognised too that this wasn't the time and place for a cushy 'we saved the world cue long embrace' moment.
"Angel, can you take Faith down in the lift, she's tired. Then get her back to our place. I've got to check in with Giles, help our friends with the shiny badges clean up this mess and then work on a cover story for the apocalypse. I need to check Willow's ok too." Angel nodded,
"I've got her, don't worry." Buffy took a last glance, almost pitying, at Faith's dejected form and then turned and headed for the staircase at a fast pace.
Angel held the lift doors for Faith and then pressed the button for the ground floor. Faith said nothing. He took in her thin frame, she'd lost a lot of weight lately, circles under her eyes and the shaking when she stood still too long. He pulled off his jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders,
"Keep your strength up." He muttered. "It's your soul, does that to you when you kill people." Faith flinched as he said the word kill and looked up desperately at him.
"I'm not gonna make it through this one, how can I? How do I keep going through this?"
"By not thinking, just keep living. And day by day things will come up that make it better, eventually the pain will ease but it'll never stop, that's the bed you made now you have to lie in it." His voice was gentle but honest as they descended, there was no point in lying to her- she'd be living in hell, greater or lesser, for the rest of her life, but it wouldn't always be this hard. As the lift jolted to a halt, nearly sending unsteady Faith flying, Angel made to press the release button for the metal doors, but Faith yelped,
"Don't!" Angel looked right at her, forehead furrowed in a concerned frown, he reached for her arm,
"Faith. You're terrified aren't you?" She gulped in air desperately, looking around as though the tiny lift would provide some escape route for her.
"Angel, yeah, I'm terrified. Wouldn't you be? I just killed a guy, another guy, I mean how long can I keep running for? It's never going to work. I'm so scared when I walk across that factory floor that they'll all look at me and know, they'll judge me again, they'll hate me. Everyone is going to know what I've done. I'm shaking 'cause if I walk out there and a cop stops me how am I supposed to deny it? They'll know, they'll take me down, then that's me done, out for good. I can't do it Angel, I can't face it. Don't make me. Don't make me, please don't make me!" Her voice rose till it was hysterical. Angel held her head in both hands and forced her to look at him, then he leaned his head close to hers.
"I'm right there with ya, I know the feeling. But I'm here now too, and I'll protect you. Yes they're going to judge you, that's what you deserve, they might hate you but then I think you deserve that too. But nothing lasts forever. It'll be the hardest walk you've ever walked, but after the hardest things only get easier, right? So you're gonna stay close to me, you're going to look at the floor and hate yourself, but you're going to make it. You hear me?" Faith nodded against his head and took a deep breath. "And Buffy will have spun the police a story like, you were using a very long sword to kill a vampire and it accidentally speared him too- don't worry." Faith felt a smile and a laugh for his joke buried somewhere deep inside her, well at least they're there somewhere, in case I ever need them again.
Faith barely felt the walk side by side with Angel across the factory floor. Most people loitered at the edges, nursing themselves or others, the officials were stuffing bits of monster and daemon into large sacks- it was a morbid scene. Faith walked it watching her feet. Then she felt cold air hit her face again and she looked up, only when the wind stung a little did she touch her face and realise she'd been crying again. She shook her head in disbelief at her own weakness, Angel seemed to read her face,
"It's a good thing, crying is a part of the whole remorse process. C'mon the car is this way." Faith stepped into the passenger seat and leaned her head heavily against the window as the car stuttered into life; it's minimal heating doing very little. She watched lights trundle by without really seeing them, felt the turns in the road taking her towards Angel's place. The car stopped. "You can stay here for a while." Angel told her, "I've got a spare room out the back, it's dark but you'll get used to the lack of sunlight in my house." Faith nodded, heaving herself from the vehicle.
"Thanks." She muttered "Is B staying here?" Angel shrugged,
"On and off. She goes between here, Giles' place, and her house. Occasionally bringing along Xander and Willow, the three of them tend to stay together wherever they stay." Faith nodded. She liked the darkness of the building as she entered, it was somewhere she could hide, she already felt more comfortable when she knew Angel couldn't see her.