She sits, well lays there in the dark staring at the ceiling. A while ago it turned into the only thing of interest in the room. Her blank, expressionless eyes drift over the patterns on the ceiling. The curves in each stroke and the coarse looking texture have kept her mind busy while she loses herself in the small room.
The wind whistles outside the window, while a crash erupts from the alley below her motel room. For a brief second the thought of a possible vampire flashes through her head but vanishes just as quickly as the thought came. She shifts her weight slightly, feeling the rocking, feeling the creaking, feeling the sagging of the queen size mattress due to the weight that has plagued it for hours on end. The smell of the room hasn't changed since she arrived weeks ago. It stinks of mold and rot, cheap soap and rusted pipes, hard water and fast food.
The only sound in the room is the delicate movement of air in and out of her chest and the occasional moan and groan through the ever-thin walls. Perfectly content to lay here awake, staring at the ceiling until morning, she waits. She is waiting for the sun to rise, waiting for the day to begin, waiting for life to start.
The near silence is comforting; it feels almost like a blanket, but much warmer than the raggedy one that has been draped over her motionless body. Suddenly, the shrill of a phone's ringing breaks the comforting silence. Her gaze drifts to the clock reading 2:13am and she snatches the phone faster than presumed possible. She is suddenly alive.
"Hello?" her raspy voice drifts into the phone and into waiting ears.
"Faith" the voice whispers out. The voice she was least expecting to hear yet was the one that she was hoping for.
"Buff…" she starts to say but trails off quietly. She starts again. "B?" pause. "What's up?" She mumbles, any faint idea of rest leaving her mind in an instant.
"Nothing really" Buffy admits into the phone. "I couldn't sleep, so, I just thought that I'd give you a call." Only one thought is playing through Faith's head. 'Out of all the scoobies she coulda called, she picked me.'
"Not to seem rude or anything B, but why did ya call me? I mean you coulda called any of the scoobies and they'd woulda been happy to talk." Faith questions into the phone, hoping that Buffy wouldn't take this the wrong way.
"Fine, well if you don't want to talk…" Faith cuts her off. "NO! That's not what I meant." Lowering her voice she asks, "just why did you call me?" she sounds small, her voice breathy. She sounds venerable, very un-Faith like. Noting the change in Faith's voice, Buffy changes hers to match it.
"I don't know really. One second I'm just sitting there and the next I'm dialing your number. I don't really know to be honest." She tries to explain, her voice quiet and kind, not much unlike Faith's at the time.
Taking a second Faith breathes into the phone "Ok, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it that way" "that's ok" Buffy mumbles, knowing something is different, yet she can't place it.
"So B" Faith decides to start. "You never really got around to what's up" "Yeah I did F, you just weren't paying attention." She replied continuing. "I told you that I couldn't sleep. Lots of things on my mind."
Taking the bait, Faith jumped to reply. "What kinds of things B?" she sat and waited for an answer, silently hoping that it would have something to do with her but knowing that it wouldn't.
'Ohh you know all sorts of stuff." Faith didn't know, yet continued to act like she had the slightest clue. Buffy continued "School, the scoobies, Angel…you." The last part she added under her breath, so silently that if Faith wasn't a slayer she wouldn't have heard it. But she did, and it just about stopped her heart.
"Ohh yeah, lots of stuff, huh?" Faith mumbled, still having some difficulty breathing, knowing that Buffy would pick up on it but praying that she wouldn't. "So Faith" she paused slightly as if letting those two words sink in. "Why are you still awake?" she questioned, hoping for a strait answer.
"You k-know" Faith stuttered. She started again. "Same thing as you. Couldn't really sleep." Pause. "Just a lot on my mind." She reasoned, knowing that Buffy wouldn't let it go.
"Ohh yeah." Buffy replied sure that it would get to Faith. "What kind of stuff?"
"Everything, nothing. All sorts of stuff I guess. I'm not really too sure." She answered while the conversation continued.
"How can you not be too sure about what you're thinking? I mean its your head, so you should know what's going on inside of it." Reasoned Buffy, who by experience had learned that that isn't always the case. Her own mind appeared as a perfect example.
"I probably should, but you know me, I never play by any of the rules." Faith tried to explain while a full-scale war raged on inside of her now throbbing head.
Buffy, having an answer for everything, replied "Why not follow the rules, I mean, they make the game worth playing.
" B, if I still followed all those goddamn rules that everyone has come up with I'd be long gone by now. Besides the rules are no fun anyway. With them there's always a winner and a loser. I'd rather just be the winner automatically."
Having been witness to how much Faith likes to win Buffy commented "Why don't you follow the rules and then just call it a tie. Then everyone wins. No losers."
"Everyone can't be the winner B. That's a fairy tale and how often do fairytales actually happen?" Faith told her, speaking from experience. Normally she ended up as the loser.
"Why not, huh Faith?" Buffy asked, determined to show Faith that it was true.
"Because it just can't and we all know it." After a short pause and a small breath she continued. "Give me one time when both people won the same game at the same time." Faith stated, seeing that she had given up all forms of control at the moment.
Seeing her opportunity Buffy spoke "You know how I said that I was thinking about lots of stuff. You know, school, the scoobies, Angel?" Faith felt her heart drop to her stomach at the mention of his name but responded quickly to cover it up.
"Yeah, I was kinda there for the whole conversation." "Well" Buffy stated, "What if I told you that that wasn't all that I was thinking about?" Buffy asked knowing that Faith's curiosity would take control of her and that there was no backing out now.
"Then I would ask you what else you were thinking about." Faith responded, wondering where this was going.
Buffy's hand shook while holding the phone to her face. "Then I would say that it was you. Faith, I lo…"
Click!
Faith slammed the phone down leaving Buffy listening to the dial tone. Unable to deal with what was running through her head and her heart, a few solitary tears ran down Faith's face. Her tears turned into full, body racking sobs. Those sobs woke the sleeping body lying next to her.
"Baby?" a familiar voice called out groggily from sleep. "Who was that?" she asked, glancing quickly to the phone and Faith's tear soaked face.
"No one" Faith replied sadly, while lying next to her and gathering the girl in her arms. She spoke softly to herself as she finally drifted off to sleep.
"It was nobody; it was just an angel"