Afterwards, Buffy knew she should have acted sooner. But it'd been a long struggle to get this far: she'd had to have Willow do a strength spell so that she and Faith would even have a chance with this particular group of demons. So when she'd finally got the leader on the ground, she'd paused to savour a hard-won triumph.
She'd heard the screams, of course, but she hadn't thought they were coming from Faith. From her general direction, sure, being caused by her, easily, but from her? Never.
They certainly hadn't sounded like her.
In her years as the Slayer, Buffy had heard a lot of people scream. She'd heard screams of pain, torture, hysteria, and the occasional death cry. She'd even heard Faith scream once or twice, and she can absolutely guarantee it sounded nothing like the noise she made when one of those demons succeeded in crushing every bone in her hand at the same time.
She can absolutely guarantee it, because from the moment she saw the crushed, tattered, pathetic thing that had been Faith's right hand – the moment in the hospital when they realized her slayer healing had frozen her hand into that twisted position – the moment when Faith first refused to meet her eyes – that scream has not stopped sounding in her head.
It's twisted, but she can't help but admire the irony. For so long, she had admired Faith's beautiful hands – her strong fingers, elegant wrists – and yet had denied Faith the right to touch her. And now that they'd finally worked everything out, finally gotten over their past, finally found each other – the hands that had so recently learned confidence in their caresses of Buffy's body will be denied to her forever.
If there is a God, Buffy doesn't think much of his sense of humour.
She isn't sure if Faith blames her, is too afraid of the answer to even ask. In a way, it doesn't even matter, because she blames herself, wakes up screaming from dreams where she sees what she hadn't in reality – the slow pressure cracking and then crushing bones. Faith is having her own trouble sleeping, or so she's told – they haven't shared a bed since the night Buffy tried to take her gloved hand and Faith cried silently and left before dawn.
This is her fault. There is nothing she can do to change that. And no matter how many demons she slays or lives she saves, it will never change the most important thing: that Faith will never look at her without pain in her eyes ever again. That Faith will never again be the fearless, cocky, proud girl she'd fallen in love with. That Faith may never slay again, and that she's a fragment of a person for it.
Buffy would willingly give up her Slayer powers for any one of those things to not be true. Without Faith, there doesn't seem to be any joy left in the world, and she can't help wondering bitterly if maybe that's fair. She failed the most important person in her world, and now she'll never have her.