Faith was still leaning her elbow on the counter, resting her cheek against her fist absent-mindedly, as though she were thinking, or perhaps simply feeling awkward and wanting to avoid looking at Buffy head on. She kicked her leg in and out slightly, her bare foot making a soft knocking noise against the counter, and then smiled suddenly, turning her head to face her again.
"You remember that one Christmas I went to your house? When we were kids in Sunny-D?"
Buffy nodded, somewhat cautiously, unsure of where Faith was going with this. Their past together, even the more innocuous moments like the one that Faith had just brought up, was something they had by some unspoken agreement long ago decided simply not to mention around each other, as though by leaving it unspoken, it were almost forgotten as well. Yet here Faith was, not only speaking but smiling, if faintly, as though the memory were something she enjoyed, rather than a reminder of a darker time between them.
Did Faith have memories from Sunnydale that she didn't feel bitterness or guilt towards, or want to forget or somehow use to tease Buffy with? The thought was one that had never occurred to Buffy, and she wondered, as she waited for Faith to elaborate, whether this could have changed. How did Faith think or feel about everything that went down in Sunnydale now?
She was curious, for the first time, but she wasn't about to ask.
"Yeah, I totally lied," Faith said, with a small smirk and roll of her eyes, but this appeared to be directed more at herself than at Buffy as she stretched her arms in front of her on the counter, using the counter to brace herself as though she were trying to pop or crack a few joints as she did so. "There wasn't any party for me to go to. Well, there was, probably, but if I'd gone I would've been crashing it."
That hadn't been exactly what Buffy expected out of her, especially since she had pretty much figured that one out the moment the words left Faith's mouth four years ago. She raised an eyebrow back at her, her lips curving wryly as she nodded.
"Yeah, I kinda guessed as much." She paused, then tentatively added, "I was glad you came."
She had said so at the time, but it somehow seemed different to say it now, and to realize she still meant it, even after all the years and all that had happened so soon after that one day, that one Christmas. Even though she had initially had to be guilt-tripped into asking Faith, even though she had really not spent very much time with her, even though she had since then hated and resented and felt reluctantly guilty in regards to her for the majority of the years until only recently…even so, she had never, she realized, regretted that Faith had come that night. Somehow, it wouldn't have been the same evening if she had been prideful enough to stay away.
There was no way she could put THAT into words though, so she left it at that, but it seemed to be enough. And Faith seemed to accept it, where she once might have fought and denied and argued against it, whether this would have been because she simply liked to be a troublemaker, or because she couldn't believe it herself.
"Yeah, me too," was what she said in response to Buffy instead, her voice soft, and she continued to kick one leg slowly beneath the counter, her toes gently knocking against its underside. Dimples briefly flickered into view as she smiled slightly, seeming to be still thinking, still remembering, her gaze slightly absent, as though she could see it all in her mind. And as Buffy watched her with some interest, hiding a yawn behind her hand, she wondered if that was the case. She never would have figured Faith to be one for nostalgia, if that was what this was.
"Your mom doing her hostess thing…Dawn hanging around tugging on my arm and wanting to drag me around to like, every decorated inch of your house to point out every little candy cane and holly berry….I guess you guys always went all out on that kind of thing. The tree and eggnog and wreaths and whole nine yards, right? Meals and cheesy movies and all?"
She didn't wait for Buffy to nod before going on, snickering slightly. "And everyone getting in a tizzy over the snow…in Boston it was just like an everyday fact of December, back in Sunny-D it was a miracle sent by the Christmas Miracle Elves or something. It was like one of those lame, overly cheery TV show specials…well, except for the part about the suicidal vampire."
"It's mostly the part about the suicidal vampire I remember," Buffy muttered, but she too was smiling, thinking back. She expected Faith to start cracking jokes on Angel or Buffy or both of them then, sliding safely back into familiar territory, a ground that had been thoroughly covered before with them and would be easier to tread on than this new, not quite sure mood now between them. She expected Faith to abruptly stand and announce she was heading out or going to bed, anything to break this strange little trip down memory lane that had yet to end in bitterness.
But Faith didn't stand, and she didn't plaster back the usual wall still remaining firmly, if transparently, between them. She just shrugged again, drumming her fingers lightly on the countertop.
"Well, you missed out then…it was nice. I thought about it later, sometimes."
"You did?" Buffy couldn't stop herself from blurting out in surprise, turning to face her more fully in her chair and almost knocking her knee into Faith's before she quickly pulled the stool back a little. "When? In-"
She stopped herself before the words "prison" left her mouth, because this was another topic between them that was generally left unspoken. But Faith picked up her meaning and just nodded, briefly meeting her eyes.
"Yeah, in prison, sometimes. We got socks and things like that on Christmas, or whatever they said was all right. Letters…visitors. Angel did that for me. Well, the last year he was kinda tied up so he forgot or whatever, but he usually did. Christmas special or not, kinda preferred yours," she said casually, and Buffy digested this information, thinking of Angel standing awkwardly before the prison phone box as Faith opened whatever socks and underwear he might have sent her, half horrified, half amused by this mental imagery. She almost missed what Faith was adding in this brief daydream.
"I mean it was the last one I'd had since my Watcher, up until this year, so it was kind of like the last one I had to go by for reference for a while."
Buffy's head snapped up at this, because as casually as Faith was saying it, the mention of her Watcher, Buffy, at least, was interpreting as a big deal. She had heard Faith mention her Watcher truthfully exactly once in all the time she knew her, and that had been to describe her murder. She had never asked Giles for information about her, out of discomfort of having to know exactly what had happened to her, exactly what Faith had experienced in witnessing her death. So to hear Faith bring her up willingly now, in connection with something like Christmas, she was unsure of what to say, or what Faith wanted her to say, what reaction she was expecting or hoping for.
"Really?" was the safest response she could come up with on the fly, and Faith nodded, tracing a crack on the countertop. Her voice was still conversational as she replied, but the fact that she didn't meet Buffy's eyes said volumes.
"Yeah, year I was with her, she did the whole Christmas thing for me, trees and gifts and carols and hot chocolate and all the rest. It was kind of…I kinda liked it. Didn't tell her that, but…" Faith shrugged, still picking at the cracks on the countertop as she let that thought trail off, and half started but didn't complete a new one. "Kinda never really went all out with the Christmas thing before that year."
Because…her mother hadn't done Christmas? Because her mother had done sucky Christmases? Because they were too poor, or because her mother didn't care or forgot, or because her mother was too mean? Even now, Buffy knew very little about Faith's life before she had met her, and had asked her still less. What she had been able to piece together from her few comments told her only that however Faith's life had been, she had not had it easy. None of them had, but Faith's "not easy" seemed to be on an entirely different playing field.
But it seemed that this one comment, at least for tonight, had been more than enough to say aloud in Faith's mind, because she laughed suddenly then, a short, almost forced sound, as she turned to fully face Buffy again, rolling her eyes.
"Remember those dumb lights I put up in my room? Back in Sunnydale?" She rolled her eyes again. "Looked like shit once I saw the ones covering like every inch of your place. Don't know why I bothered."
It was a strange change of subject, but one that was definitely more familiar to them both- light in tone, mocking, and this was in fact almost a peace offering of Faith's, an attempt to ease back into their usual interactions again. By poking fun at herself, it was as if she were inviting Buffy to do so as well, to go back to their normal bantering. But although part of Buffy recognized this, she couldn't quite bring herself to do it, not yet, for she, if not Faith, were still thinking, wondering what Faith had been thinking before the subject change…remembering.
"I liked them," she says in mild defense of the mentioned lights, and Faith raised an eyebrow, even waving off her remark with one hand.
"Liked them? Try pitied them," she said with her lips twitching into a smirk, and Buffy's eyes widened, unsure of how to respond to this. Whenever Faith stated a truth about herself or her thoughts that was uncomfortable for her to admit to- something that occurred more often than she wanted by far- she never knew how to respond beyond a blatant denial.
"Well-" she started, a hint of defensiveness and denial in her tone even before she could get out a full sentence, but Faith wouldn't let her get far into her reworking of the situation with her words.
"Come on, B, let's be real here. It's alright, you pitied ME, so what's a string of lights to you?"
Buffy looked away, shifting herself uneasily on her stool and swinging it lightly from side to side. This didn't decrease her awkwardness at all, because as a result she knocked her knee into Faith's. Though Buffy jerked back, Faith didn't acknowledge the brief physical contact in any way, instead continuing to regard Buffy with raised eyebrows, almost smiling. She was sure, from the nearly anticipant way that Faith watched her, that the woman enjoyed getting off on making Buffy feel like this.
"I didn't," she started to say, but both knew even as she spoke the words that it wasn't true, and her tone was far from convincing. What was it about Faith that made her want to hear her say these things out loud, anyway? How could she possibly be enjoying that?
Once, Faith might have pushed her into saying something like this to provoke her own anger, as if needing a legitimate excuse to fight or attack her. The thought, unlikely as it was now, was still faintly in the back of Buffy's mind, but if Faith was angry or hurt, she was hiding it well. If anything, she just appeared to be continually amused and entertained by Buffy's responses, as though all of this were a game to her in some way.
"Yeah you did," she said easily, shrugging and tossing her hair back from her face, continuing to kick one leg in and out slightly beneath the counter. "You thought I was a poor, dumb loser who couldn't do anything right. S'ok, you were pretty much right anyway. See, you aren't denying it, are you?" she said even as Buffy opened her mouth, then closed it, again unsure of how to deny the remark without it being clearly insincere. "It's alright, B, I thought you were a spoiled, self-righteous princess who was about as insightful to other people as a tick, so we're even, right?"
That comment, though, was enough to hammer through any of Buffy's remaining discomfort as she bolted rigidly upright on her stool, accidentally swinging her legs into Faith's again, hard enough for Faith to flinch slightly as Buffy now looked her directly in the eye with indignation.
"I was not!" she blurted, and for a moment, it was as though she were again her teenage self, looking back at a teenage Faith- a feeling that was enhanced when Faith grinned, dimples popping up in her cheeks, and mischievously began to imitate the teenaged Buffy in a voice much higher and whinier than Buffy could remember her own having been.
"Mom, Faith's eating my French fries! Mom, all my friends are looking at Faith and not me! Mom, Faith is talking to guys that I'm not dating but I knew them first!"
"Well, you did," Buffy muttered, but she couldn't keep back the small smile trying to emerge in response to Faith's melodramatic performance, which was currently including limp-handed gestures and wide-eyed pouting.
"Hey, never denied it," Faith laughed in her own normal voice. "Your mom can cook, your friends got eyes- well, Xander's just got the one now, but other than that- and other guys had eyes too."
"We could have added a few things to that list…like "Mom, Faith stole weapons," or "Mom, Faith got me arrested," or "Mom, Faith stole my body," or "Mom, Faith slept with my boyfriend," or "Mom, Faith kil-" Buffy started, her tone difficult to determine whether she was attempting to be playful or was very serious and growing angry. Faith cut her off before she could get too into adding the new charges, however, and her own tone was more serious then, though not apologetic.
"Okay, so a few more charges could be added to that…but I wasn't trying to go down Memory Accusation Lane. Not that one, anyway…just, you know. That day, that Christmas? It was kind of nice, is all. Kind of would have been nice if we'd had more like that. That's all."
Buffy opened her mouth, then, seeing Faith's expression, closed it, taking in a breath before she slowly nodded in agreement. She was surprised to realize that when she thought about it, her agreement was genuine. "Yeah…it would have."
But Faith at times could be annoyingly observant. Not in the times that Buffy thought she logically should be, like when failed to notice she had put a totally empty milk carton in the fridge three times in a row, but at times like this, when Buffy rather preferred she be distracted and oblivious. And obviously this time she had noticed that Buffy had been about to say something, since that was exactly what she had to comment on.
"What? You gonna say I made my choices, blah blah blah, could have had it if I'd been a good little girl or something along those lines?" she shrugged, but her voice was neither resentful, angry, nor sorrowful when she went on, simply matter-of-fact. "I know. And I've said enough sorries by now to know they'll never really be enough to make it right. Better, maybe, like how I get along with people or whatever, but not right or okay, what I did. But…you're still wrong too. I still couldn't have had that, any of it, even if I was the model Slayer or whatever."
"What?" Buffy frowned, wary. It seemed that despite Faith's claim of not wanting to get into accusations from the past, she was heading straight for that, and right now, Buffy was just not in the mood or mindset to go there. "Why would you say that, Faith? Sure you would have."
"Nah, I wouldn't have," Faith shook her head, calm and confident of her words rather than emotional or accusatory. She lifted one hand palm up, then ran it through her hair absently as she tried to explain. "I didn't fit, never did. Even that one nice night. Probably not really your fault, or anyone else's…just how it was. So even if I'd stuck around….it would have still been like that."
A silence stretched between them then as Buffy looked down at the countertop, almost memorizing its cracks and speckled marks as she thought, really thought, however reluctantly, about what Faith had stated. It seemed, though she didn't really want to accept it, that maybe she was right, at least partly, and a reluctant sympathy, mingled with guilt, rested around her heart. It had always been there, this feeling towards Faith of the past, but anger and impatience and her own feelings towards her own life had usually managed to deter her from acknowledging it or feeling it for long. It seemed that she should say something, but she could not imagine what.
"I know you….felt left out," she said finally, her words slow in coming. "Or…like…"
She let the sentence trail, and Faith took pity on her, picking it up without comment.
"Yeah, there was that," she nodded, and then, with a shrug and tone too casual for Buffy to at first process just exactly what she had said, she added, "That, and how I wanted to fuck you."