2.1.15

Long chapter this time with plenty of action and excitement!

Trigger warning: rape/sexual assault, general hard feelings.

-Rex

3. The Dreamcatcher

"Vampires can't enter homes," Giles mused one evening, sitting with them in the living room while Dawn and Noa, a young witch visiting from Spain, decorated the Christmas tree, "but that doesn't mean they can't smoke people out."

Willow glanced up from her Kindle. "Are you talking about the unusually high number of arsons around here lately?"

"Indeed." He muted the television. "It makes sense doesn't it?"

"It does…" Willow's eyes followed the shaky cellphone video on the television screen, the nightly news playing another reel of disturbing eyewitness footage. "It kinda freaks me out though. Like, does this mean the vamps have found a way around the no entry rule?"

"Lord, I hope not." He stroked his greying beard. "You've protected this house against fire?"

"Duh," Willow rolled her eyes. "I'm not a noob. I covered all basic earth elements, some heavy metals, toxic gases, and seven different types of magic."

"Nerd!" Dawn called from somewhere behind the tree.

"Haters gonna hate," Willow sing-songed.

Giles hummed under his breath. "The governor is on TV again. They're going to call in the national guard."

"They're scared."

All eyes turned to Buffy, but she said nothing more. She wrapped herself tighter in her blanket and kept her eyes fixed on the fire. It was Faith that broke the silence first.

"It doesn't seem random. If it were, they'd just burn down a whole block and round everybody up." She frowned. "They're targeting specific people."

All eyes in the room flicked to Willow, who had been quietly annointed as their interim leader during Buffy's extended illness. She bore the mantel with a little less confidence, less arrogance, less natural born ability, but it suited her. She was growing into it.

The redhead sighed. "I agree with Faith. They do appear to be targeting specific homes. Is there a pattern?"

"All those families had teenage daughters," Dawn said blithely, unwrapping a glass reindeer ornament. "I knew some of them back in school."

"Teenage girls," Giles said thoughtfully. "Virgins…"

Faith's gut twisted uncomfortably. "What're you thinkin', G?"

He didn't immediately reply. The whole room waited on him with bated breath. All save Buffy, once again lost in her thoughts, and Dawn, who continued unwrapping ornaments, threading the wire hooks through glass loops, and reaching up to hang them around barren branches.

At last, he removed his spectacles and began polishing them on the lapel of his jacket. "Offerings... Yes, to their master." He nodded to himself. "Demons believe that virgins have untainted blood. It would be considered an honor to present your master with a human virgin to drink. I think that's the most likely explanation."

"Do we need to be worried about this kiddo?" Faith gestured at the lanky, auburn haired teen.

"Not a virgin," Dawn replied drily.

Everyone smirked, except Giles, who averted his eyes and cleared his throat, signalling an end to the discussion before it could really get started. Noa giggled and handed Dawn another box of ornaments, muttering something quietly to her in Spanish. They laughed together.

Faith scrunched up her nose and turned to Kennedy, who was immersed in a game on her phone. "When did the jailbait learn Spanish?"

"You kidding?" Kennedy scoffed. "She knows like, four languages already, and she can read Latin."

Faith's eyes widened imperceptibly.

"Yeah. I know. She wants to be a watcher."

"And I'll make a really freaking good one," Dawn announced proudly, stepping away from the Christmas tree to admire her handiwork. "I've got eight years of experience dealing with Buffy, after all." She beamed over at her older sister, who, to everyone's surprise, managed to return a wan smile. "Number one slayer badass of all time."

"Hey!" Faith and Kennedy protested simultaneously. They turned to look at each other, and laughed.

"Is there anything we can do?" Willow lamented, bringing the conversation back around to the panning images of burning homes on the tv. "A dozen people have already gone missing since yesterday." She gnawed on her thumbnail. "I feel bad."

"You feel bad?" Kennedy deadpanned. "Babe. This is Cleveland. The citizens of this city should be held liable for being stupid enough to live on a hellmouth."

"Still…" Willow looked no less anguished.

"We don't have the situation under control," Faith mused, and everyone turned to look at her, including a stony-faced Buffy." The city is burning and we don't have the forces we need to stop it." She ran her fingers through her hair, frustrated. "Giles, isn't there anyone else we can call?"

He replaced his spectacles and regarded her pensively for a few seconds. "There is a possibility that Alma and Maite will be finished with their mission next week, although it could drag on. Natalia is tied up in Ukraine until after Christmas." His brow furrowed. "We are, truthfully, very short on hands at the moment."

"How is that possible?" Faith pressed incredulously. "There must be a thousand slayers by now."

The watcher sighed. "Yes, and six...no, seven billion people to police."

"Yeah, but-"

"-Not all of them are active within the organization," he said tersely, cutting off her reply. "There was a fair amount of mismanagement during our takeover of the Council. Some of the old members sabotaged our slayer relationships, even mobilized them against us. Others, for political reasons, have gone to work for their respective governments or religious factions." He gave her an inscrutable look. "Not all of the newborn slayers have been willing to work with us."

Faith sat in stunned silence for a moment. Was it embarrassing to admit that she hadn't known all that? She had dealt with a few rogue slayers. It wasn't surprising that there would be some, given that she was basically their poster child, but on a large scale? She had assumed that the Organization had things more or less under control.

"You've been in the field for a long time," Giles said, correctly guessing her next question. "You've missed out on all the politics in London."

True, it made sense that not everyone would wake up with super powers one day and suddenly want to fight the good fight, or, at any rate, the frustrating, and often morally ambiguous fight the Slayer Organization was waging against Evil. She glanced furtively at Buffy, who had resumed staring vacantly into her lap. Maybe Dawn had given her too much cough syrup.

"Okay," she huffed. "I guess we'll have to make do with what we have."

"We can handle it," Kennedy remarked casually, back to playing the jewel game on her phone. "We're certified."

Faith decided to take the bait. "Certified what?" she asked.

Kennedy's eyes glinted mischievously. "Certified badasses."

Dawn and Noa snorted, and Faith could have sworn that the faintest traces of a smile flitted across Buffy's drawn features.

/ / /

Kennedy and Faith handled normal patrolling duties in the immediate area while Buffy rested. Though it had been decided upon unanimously by the rest of the group, Faith was still surprised every night when the blonde didn't beg Giles to let her go out. She was even more surprised when Buffy didn't needle her about her drinking habits, or her smoking habits. No mention of the bourbon above the fridge. Not a word about the ashtray she had added to the front porch. No dirty looks or muttered grievances. Nothing. And it was profoundly disconcerting. In fact, there were a lot of details about Buffy's recent behavior that were disconcerting. Apart from their initial argument, Buffy had made a point to ignore Faith almost completely, which wouldn't have been so unusual, except that she had been particularly distant from the rest of her friends as well. Only Dawn had been able to coax real conversation out of her, and it was curt and laconic, as though each word were uttered with great effort. She spent most of her time coughing and wheezing, alternating between sleeping and staring at the TV, nearly catatonic. When she did move about the house she was irritable and easily startled, jumping at the slightest sounds, dodging glances, arms folded like a shield across her chest. It had Faith rattled. She had seen the thousand yard stare on plenty of faces before, but never on Buffy's.

She was starting to wish she had never gotten on the plane.

The tension showed in her expression late one evening, the second week into her stay, crunching along on an icy sidewalk next to Kennedy. Cleveland was quiet, foggy, and frozen. The narrow, colonial double homes packed in around Fairfax Park twinkled with lights and decorations. The busier avenues were strung up as well. The pointed stone tower of the Cleveland Renaissance Hotel glowed red and green from downtown, and though it was barely visible through the mist, Faith's eyes strayed in that direction whenever there was a break in the trees and the houses. With the cultists in town, the local vampires were keeping their heads down, which was just as well, since the two slayers had resorted to applying adhesive to their gloves just to help their cold fingers grip the stakes. Faith's shoulders were slumped forward in her army green, duck-cloth coat, eyes dark and downcast beneath her wool hat. She was brooding, something she did quite often, something that, to the old scoobies, seemed as natural to her persona as her wild, brown hair. But Kennedy was not, and never would be, one of the original scoobies, and she took a genuine interest in Faith's somber mood, watching her openly as they trudged along, hopping the fence into St. John's Cemetery, slogging through a field of crusty, shin-deep snow. When they had circled the property twice in silence, finding nothing but a freshly abandoned grave and a freaked out newbie, who panicked and ran straight from Faith's stake into the pointy end of Kennedy's, the two slayers settled down on a couple of flat-topped headstones for a break. Faith pulled a crushed cardboard packet from her coat pocket and offered a cigarette to Kennedy, who nodded and stretched out her hand. Faith lit up, passed the lighter, and exhaled, watching the smoke drift up to join the freezing fog hanging over the trees.

She heard Kennedy fumbling with her gloves, and then the sharp click of metal, a brief flash of orange light illuminating the names etched in the stones around them.

"This job is so morbid," Kennedy muttered, glancing around. "I spend more time in cemeteries than I do in Willow."

"Jesus," Faith snorted, blowing smoke through her nose, "what a way to open a damn conversation."

"What?" Kennedy smirked. "I still get laid after five years together. That's a pretty big deal for us lesbos."

"You want an award or something? Jeez."

"Hey!" Kennedy gave her an indignant shove. "Lesbian bed death is a real thing! I get to be proud of us, and you get to shut up!"

Faith just snickered. "Okay, whatever, but I'm getting you a vagina trophy."

"Fine. I'll put it over my fucking fireplace."

"Yeah? You gonna show it off to your dinner guests?"

"Absolutely."

Faith tapped her filter and let some of the ash on the of her cigarette float to the ground. "It sounds like things are going well."

"Yeah, they are."

"Congrats. I didn't think you'd last long, but I'm pleasantly surprised."

"Thanks," Kennedy said drily.

"Anytime."

"You know, I gave up a slot with the crew in Paris just to be with her. After Sunnydale she wasn't willing to leave Buffy and Dawn, so I stayed."

"Sucks you had to settle for Cleveland."

"I know, but honestly? It was an easy decision."

Faith flashed her a sly smile. "So, where's the ring, Ken?"

Kennedy shrugged, pausing to take a deep drag on her cigarette. "Willow doesn't believe in marriage. She thinks it's sexist and old-fashioned."

"Bullshit. She's afraid of commitment."

"Will?" Kennedy gave Faith an incredulous look. "She's the most domestic woman I know. She makes Buffy look like a philandering adrenaline junkie."

"Buffy is a philandering adrenaline junkie."

"Hardly the point."

Faith smirked. They lapsed into silence for a moment, listening to a car creak over patches of ice on the road behind them.

"She would never leave me. She loves me."

"Mm…"

"Isn't that enough?"

Faith shrugged. "Is it?"

Kennedy rolled her eyes. "Look out! We've got a fucking philosopher over here."

"I mean, is it enough for you, Ken?"

'Well, yeah." She threw her filter to the ground and watched it smolder in the snow. "It should be."

Faith raised a dubious eyebrow. "Okay."

"I mean…" the young woman huffed, "it's just that, Mom and Dad are starting to ask about grandchildren, and I haven't even gotten there yet. Willow and I still share a house with a bunch of other people. Hell, we can't even have loud sex. And then there's the fact that I kill demons for a living. We definitely haven't talked about kids, and, well, it doesn't exactly seem right to have kids unless things are like, really serious, right? And stable?"

"I guess."

"I mean, doesn't it?"

"Sure."

"Not that I want kids right now, anyway. There's plenty of time for that later, but, I just… it got me thinking about us. About where we're going."

"She'll come around." Faith ground out her cigarette and tossed it away. "When she lost Tara it almost fucking ruined her. She's scared, ya know? For you and herself. She's not sure if she can handle losing someone else."

"She won't lose me," Kennedy asserted fiercely, hopping to her feet. "I'm not going anywhere."

"Good. Tell her that. Tell her that you want her, and you wanna make her yours. Girls like that shit." Faith hoisted herself off her respective tombstone, and shivered. "Let's get moving. It's cold."

"You've been in the tropics too long."

Faith's lips twitched and for a moment she was smiling. "Yeah, I missed the winter."

"You're crazy."

"Yeah."

"So," Kennedy rolled the word around her mouth as she tried to think of a less jarring way to change the subject, "what's bugging you?"

They reached the fence and vaulted over it nimbly back onto the street. The fog was growing thicker, a heavy, icy blanket of mist that froze in their hair and seeped into their clothes. If visibility had been poor when they'd set out from the house, it was atrocious now. A heavy, eerie silence had settled over the city.

"I dunno."

"Is it small, mouthy, and blonde?"

"No... Maybe." She huffed. "Am I that transparent?"

"You're like, the worst liar ever."

"C'mon," Faith whined. "Not ever."

"Pretty bad. At least where Cleveland's own head-slayer-in-charge is concerned."

"She's just got that way of like…"

"Getting under your skin? Yeah, trust me. I wrote the book on her nagging abilities."

"Things are going better than I expected, though," Faith mused. "Buffy hasn't called me an evil slut yet. I'm actually kind of surprised."

Kennedy spared her a sidelong glance before turning back to the road. "Has she actually spoken to you at all?"

The brunette snorted. "Do hostile glares count?"

Kennedy smirked. "I'll take that as a 'no'."

"We argued the night I got in," Faith admitted. "She's been ignoring me since then."

"She's basically been ignoring everyone. I wouldn't take it personally."

Faith heaved an exaggerated sigh. "And here I was feeling all special."

"Yeah, well, she still changes the subject when Giles mentions your name," Kennedy shot the brunette a knowing look, "so, there's that."

"Wow."

"You have a special place in her heart."

"Right. The blackest, coldest, most unfashionable place."

They snorted in unison as they turned the corner onto a darker street, lined with smaller, shabbier houses. Home was less than a mile away, and Faith was anxious to get there. Slow nights always made her uneasy.

"I'm worried," she admitted quietly. "I've never seen her like this."

"Neither have we."

"Pneumonia?" Faith scoffed. "Really?"

"Don't get me started. Willow's tried everything."

"Is it all up here?" Faith tapped her skull. "Stress induced?"

"Could be, but it's real enough to convince real doctors." Kennedy hesitated and bit her lip before continuing. "I don't know if they told you, but… she was really messed up when we found her. I mean, messed up bad. I've never seen her like."

Faith shivered. "Like how?"

"Well, they had been missing for days, and we were all basically hysterical. And then the hospital called about Buffy so we all rushed over there, but she shrieked when Dawn tried to touch her and she wouldn't look at any of us. It was really freaky."

A chill travelled down Faith's spine, raising the hairs on her neck. "Giles and Willow told me some stuff, but they weren't too specific. They mentioned that these cult assholes used the other two girls in a ritual to open the portal."

"Ritual," Kennedy scoffed, and Faith head the slightest tremor in her voice. "That's one way to put it."

"Oh, yeah? How would you put it then?"

"Buffy wouldn't talk about it, and she pretty much flew into a panic if we asked too many questions, so Willow used a seer stone to access her memories."

"And?"

"And it was horrible. It kept Willow up for a week. They tortured them, Faith." Kennedy stopped and grabbed the older slayer by the arm and held her back. "They raped the girls, and beat them, and drank from them, and the whole time they kept Buffy chained to a wall, blindfolded, so she could hear everything. And that happened before they summoned the Dreamcatcher through the portal."

"Fuck…"

Tears leaked from Kennedy's eyes, and she turned her head away. "Those girls were my friends. I spent every night slaying with them, and the only reason I'm here now is because it was my night off."

Faith took Kennedy's gloved hand in hers and squeezed. "You got lucky, Ken. There's no way to sugarcoat it."

"God damnit."

"Look, I've been in a lot of tight spots these last couple years." Faith's tone darkened. "I've seen things that would make you sick, like, chuck right on the ground sick. This ain't no TV show, yeah? Some real sick shit happens in the world, but if you dwell on it and play the 'what if' game you'll literally go crazy. And unless you wanna sweat out a prescription painkiller addiction in a bathtub full of your own puke, I suggest finding another way to deal."

"Jesus, Faith…"

"You have a responsibility now." Faith asserted, harsh, townie accent bleeding through. "You've gotta live for them, ya know? You've gotta make the most of life. 'Cuz you never know when it's gonna end." She pulled the young slayer into her arms. "C'mere, Ken."

Kennedy sniffed. "Since when do you hug?"

"Since shut-up-and-appreciate-it," Faith said gruffly, and they clung together in a moment of shared camaraderie.

After a minute or so the girls pulled apart, clearing throats, stuffing hands into pockets, continuing their walk in contemplative silence.

"It's good to have you back," Kennedy said, at length.

"It's good to be back," Faith admitted, surprising them both.

They crossed back over Quincy and continued north into the neighborhood, talking quietly about Christmas decorations and holiday traditions. They had hardly gone a half mile when Faith, in the middle of a story about New Year's Eve celebrations in Taipei, realized that something was off. The streetlamps were flickering, and the shadows had grown longer, blacker. It made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. As they rounded the corner onto another, darker, residential street, her skin erupted in a rash of goosebumps, prickly, almost painful. The fog was so thick it was soupy, and visibility had dropped. It was distinctly unnatural. From the corner of her eye she saw Kennedy draw her knife, twirling it deftly and gripping it in her palm. Faith slid her own blade from the leather holster at her hip.

"See him?" she whispered, and Kennedy responded with a tiny nod.

Through the mist she could just make out the dark silhouette of an abnormally tall figure, dressed in a long overcoat, standing next to the light post up ahead. His features were obscured in shadow, but he watched them openly, and she could feel his eyes. They crept closer with bent knees and tense muscles, senses opening up to their surroundings, listening, feeling, smelling.

"Hello, slayers!" He called out to them with a voice that was deep, curious, and cold, cutting through them like sharp steel. "I've been following you!" He smiled so wide that they could see it even through the fog.

Faith gripped her knife and clenched her teeth. Her muscles felt like they would snap.

"Is this the freak?" she mumbled.

Kennedy was either too scared or too focused to answer.

The man started toward them on unnervingly long legs, gliding through the fog like a black wraith, in the eerie orange glow of the streetlamp. His skin was a deep, chocolate brown, his head shaved and bare. He stood around 7'5", with brawny arms bulging in the sleeves of his overcoat, and legs the size of small tree trunks stuffed into tight leather pants. His thick-soled combat boots crunched on the icy pavement as he slunk closer, skidding suddenly to a stop no more than 10 yards from where they stood.

"I know you." He cocked his head to one side, peering at Kennedy with luminous red eyes. "I've seen you before, but you," he turned to peer at Faith, "we haven't seen you."

Faith became aware of a tingling sensation along her spine. "He brought vamps."

"I felt it, too," Kennedy said through clenched teeth. "We're surrounded."

"Yeah, no shit. How do we get un-surrounded?"

He laughed and it washed over them in petrifying, hair-raised waves, echoing off the walls in their minds until their teeth chattered and their very bones seemed to vibrate. "Don't leave, girls! Let's talk."

He seemed to take a step forward, and then, in the blink of an eyes, he appeared inches from Faith's face, towering over her like a hungry predator. She staggered back in shock, but he snatched up a handful of her hair, ripping the beanie clean off her head, as he bared a set of pearly white fangs. His mouth was wide, too wide, sickeningly wide, and when he grinned at her again, she heard herself whimpering. He had once been human. That much was clear to see, but up close the divergences were stark, sharp, extended cheekbones jutting out beneath his skin, an elongated jaw and a mouth twice its normal width. His eyes were red, and they blazed like hot coals as he grew more excited, flicking a pointed tongue across his teeth.

"Ken!" Faith gasped as he twisted the knife out of her hand. "Fucking stab him already!" But the sound of grunting, and growling, and blows landing on hard bodies nearby caused her heart to sink.

"Vampires!" Kennedy managed to shout back, now embroiled in a fierce scuffle in the street.

She dodged a would be attacker as he lunged for her throat and buried her silver knife in his back. Ragged screams were muffled in the cloying fog, which had taken on a new, sinister life of its own, swirling around them in a blanket so thick that neither slayer could see the houses around them any longer. Three more demons emerged from the mist and tackled Kennedy to the ground. Faith turned her panicked gaze back to the monster holding her aloft.

"I don't believe we've been properly introduced," his smile curled up into a terrifying snarl, lips bared around a set of gleaming fangs. "I am Christopher," he cocked his demonic head to one side, "and the bastard stuffed inside my body is Valerious."

"Dr-dreamcatcher," Faith choked, gagging as he clamped a fist around her throat.

"Yesss," he purred, and, leaning forward, ran his hot, black, pointed tongue along her jaw, pausing to snap at her neck. "We love the way you taste."

"I s-shower regularly," Faith rasped.

"Witty." He suckled at the point above her jugular, and she shuddered violently all over. "Are you used to winning now? Have you forgotten what it feels like to lose?"

"I've got nothing to lose but my dignity," the slayer wheezed, kicking at the dreamcatcher futilely as he lifted her off the icy sidewalk.

"How selfish of you." A predatory growl rumbled in his broad chest. "What about Buffy?"

Her thoughts to hide it came a moments too late. Instinct was there first. Faith froze.

"I hit a nerve," he observed, pleased.

"What about Buffy?!" Faith spat, tugging futilely as clawed fingertips dug into her flesh.

"Oh, slayer," the stretched, blood-curdling grin returned to his face, and he shook her hard, laughing with delight as she whimpered and struggled, pawing at his arm with useless, gloved hands, "don't you know why they call me the Dreamcatcher?"

Behind her, Kennedy had taken a particularly painful blow to the knee, and Faith could hear the bones cracking as the vampires cheered. She winced. They were so royally screwed.

"Well?" He shook her by her hair. "Do you?"

"F-f-fuck you!"

"Fuck me?" He appeared delighted by the proposition. "We could make that happen." He ran his knuckle down the side of her face, drawing back with a laugh when snapped at him.

He increased the pressure on her windpipe and it hurt so much that she writhed in his grasp, coughing and gagging. Her sharp vision was growing fuzzy around the edges. He was so strong that she could barely inconvenience him with her superhuman strength. His eyes locked onto hers and flickered with malice.

"Want a ride?"

"Bite me!" Faith spat.

The Dreamcatcher bared his fangs. "I thought you'd never ask."

And he sank his teeth into her neck.

Faith had been bitten by several vampires before. It was an unpleasant occupational hazard. This was different.

This pain was on a whole other level.

Distantly, she was aware of fire spreading into her veins, and of her own terrified screaming, ragged voice ringing out into the frozen night air. The world around her grew blurry, and then faded. Faith moaned, but no sound came out. She tried to run, but her body was made of cement. She couldn't move. Everything was thick and heavy.

Suddenly she was falling, as if through the air, falling for an eternity, falling past flashes of light, sound, faces, voices. She fell faster and faster. It seemed to go on forever.

Then, she landed suddenly in a heap on the bare, dirty floor of a very familiar bedroom.

Her bedroom.

She looked around and saw yellowed walls, once white, now stained with layers of smoke and neglect, a grotty, single paned window that rattled in the wind and leaked like a sieve. The carpets had long since been pulled up, and all that remained was the old, pockmarked wood sub-flooring underneath, rough and unvarnished. There was a double bed on a rickety, metal frame, and a thrift store lamp balanced atop a kitchen chair beside it. Ripped, faded posters gazed down from the walls: Nine Inch Nails, Led Zeppelin, Alice In Chains. Ratty clothes spilled from the drawers of a small, wooden wardrobe, hanging ajar with half of the handles ripped out. She turned her head and saw that the ground was littered with debris, trash, magazines, cigarette butts, bottles, wristbands from bars, and ticket stubs. Faith felt the bile rising in her throat as she realized where she was, clambering to feet and rushing to the window.

The streets of Boston glared back at her.

Oh, God, this wasn't happening. There was no way this was happening.

Not again.

She knew what day this was. Her stomach churned so ferociously that thought she might actually be sick. There was no way she could stay here. She had to find a way out. Voices sounded from the living room, loud, caustic, slurring voices and Faith flew into a panic. Not Keith not Keith not Keith no, God, please no! She stumbled across the room and reached for the door, but just as her fingers were grasping the doorknob, it flew open, striking her hard across the face. She cried out and staggered back into the bed frame, clutching her forehead, and when two heavy boots thudded against the stripped, wooden floors, Faith began to plead.

"Please, no! Please, please, please!"

Keith's eye were bleary and red. His dark hair was greasy and disheveled. There was a crop of grey stubble growing in around his mouth, and he looked like he had spent the night on the floor of a seedy bar. His grey undershirt was stained with beer, his jeans torn out at the knee. The drugs had made him thinner, but he had retained some of his muscular build through the years, and he towered over her regardless as he stumbled into the room. Muttering to herself frantically, Faith scrambled away from him, moving backwards on her hands and knees.

For his part, Keith seemed not to notice her distress.

"Yah fucking cunt mother won't put out," he drawled, swaying on his feet.

Faith peered around him to see the woman in question, passed out on the living room couch with a needle protruding from her arm. "Please, Keith, don't do this," she begged, curling in on herself against the bed frame. "Please, don't!"

"I know what yah trying t'do," he jabbed an unsteady index finger at her, "and it's fucking not...it's fucking not gonna work. Yah trying to make me feel bad for being a man." He wiped his mouth. "You whores are all the fucking same, tryna play coy with me, like yah don't want it. Well, I know yah want it, bitch."

The man reached down and undid his belt.

"Keith!" Faith began to sob, growing hysterical. "Please, no! Keith!"

"I said SHUT THE FUCK UP!"

He lunged and backhanded her across face so hard that she saw stars.

Faith slumped onto the floor.

Not again.

Fuck.

The memory grew hazier, deteriorated into a barrage of sound and feeling, Faith crying out, tearing clothes, rough hands, bruises and blows. And then...pain, deep penetrating pain, like a burn spreading through her legs and her abdomen, and the sound of Keith grunting, cursing at her, choking her as he held her down.

She wanted to die.

It all stopped as suddenly as it had started. The all- encompassing blackness returned. swallowed her up. Faith felt like she was falling again.

The scene changed. Her head cleared.

She was standing next to a hospital bed holding someone's hand, Robin's hand. It was covered with cuts, all the way up his arm, traveling into regions obscured by the the sleeve of the hospital gown. His deep brown complexion was ashen. His skin was cool. The heart monitor beeped slowly, faintly, as he struggled to breathe, in the final throes.

"I'm sorry," she heard herself say. "I'm so sorry."

The wound had been fatal. She could still see the bandages on his chest, poking out above the thin, green fabric. They had been too late. No, she had been too late. Buffy had given her the scythe. If she had only sought him out a little quicker, cut through the vampires a little faster, she could have saved him. What had she been thinking? Letting him stay in Sunnydale. He was only a man. She had been so quick to disregard his human frailty in exchange for his company.

Why did she always have to be so selfish?

Why couldn't she ever save the people she loved?

Did she really destroy everything she touched?

God, it felt that way.

She was a blight. A cancer.

The beep on the heart monitor dipped and leveled into shrill screech. Nurses burst into the room, dragging her aside. Faith cried out as she released his cold hand.

The weightless feeling returned.

Now she was in Boston again, but this time she was staring into the anguished face of Diana Dormer, watching the disfigured old vampire, Kakistos, break the spine of her first watcher over his knee like a dry stick. She watched as he ripped Diana's body in half and lifted her torso up by the hair, cackling as a cascade of crimson blood flowed into his mouth, spilling onto his cheeks.

"You'll taste even better when I catch you!" he snarled. "I'll make it nice and slow!"

Faith ran as fast as her skinny legs could carry her.

The darkness swallowed her up again.

She emerged back in Sunnydale, becoming aware of her location just as Buffy jammed the knife into her gut on the roof of her old apartment building. The burning, shredding pain lanced through her torso, and it almost felt good for a moment, like an exhalation, a sigh of relief, the release of mounting tension. It was so poetic to be destroyed by the girl who had undone her. All those feelings finally coming to a head, fading away in the roar of pain. Everything would be over soon. Everything would be as it should have been. She nearly smiled as the knife slid out, until she finally registered the look of shock and horror on Buffy's face.

Had she put that expression there?

Faith stepped back onto the ledge.

She fell again, but she didn't land. Images were passing faster, the memories were getting shorter. She woke up out of her coma in the hospital, alone, abandoned, scared. She revisited the restless hell of the state penitentiary. She heard Buffy's venomous words in her ears. "Apologize and I will kill you." Faith was falling, literally falling, deeper into her own mind, and somewhere, as though it were vibrations in a vast cave, she could hear the Dreamcatcher laughing.

/ / /

Kennedy, meanwhile, was faring only slightly better. She had whittled her opponents down to just two vampires, a lanky, blonde man, and a petite, Asian woman. They circled her cautiously, leery of her even with the ruined knee and freely bleeding head wound. Slayers were not trifles. She slipped a bit on the snow-packed street, gripping her bloody knife tighter in her cold, shaking hand. The adrenalin was helping out quite a bit with the excruciating pain, but it wouldn't last much longer.

"What are you?" she goaded, glancing furtively in Faith's direction. "Chicken?"

The pair exchanged amused, but silent glances. Kennedy huffed and employed her best, most effective strategy when wounded: playing up her weaknesses. She breathed harder through her mouth, making sure to sound ragged and tired. She let her other arm dangle limp at her side and winced when it moved, feigning a dislocated shoulder. Most importantly, she made sure to stumble, a lot.

"Come on, you dumb fangers!" she shouted, brandishing her knife with excessive bravado. "Let's do this already!"

The male demon was first to take the bait, lunging for her feigned bad shoulder. Kennedy balanced her weight on her good leg and feinted right, whirling around in time to snag her fingers in the back of his collar. She yanked and he fell hard, ribs cracking on pavement. Kennedy plunged her knife down as his ragged screams ripped through the fog, but he was ready for her, rolling quickly. Her blade sank into his shoulder, inches from his heart, and cold, crimson blood spilled out onto the street. Tugging her blade free, Kennedy moved to strike the killing blow, but she was tackled from behind, tumbling head over heels until she landed flat on her back, gasping for breath. The female vampire rolled them so that she was on top, pinning the slayer down with her knees. She was faster than the other. Kennedy bucked her hips, hoping to throw her weight and catch her assailant off balance, but the vampire was ready for this. Her face morphed and she sank her teeth into the slayer's collar, laughing through a river of steaming, hot blood as the girl writhed.

"Got you now, slayer," the tiny vampire snarled, her high-pitched feminine voice sounding almost comical coming from a blood-stained mouth.

Kennedy grimaced and thrust her blade up into the vampire's gut, twisting for good measure. Blood leaked down onto her jacket and spilled onto the ground. "Did you get so hungry that you forgot about my knife?"

The vampire wailed and withdrew.

"What's that?" Kennedy snapped, climbing to her feet. "I can't hear you over all that screaming."

The male vampire grasped her ankle and she kicked him away with disgust. "Ugh, let's not do this again."

She dusted them both.

Whatever adrenalin she had left in her veins dried up as soon as she turned to survey Faith's condition. The brunette was sprawled on the icy pavement, twitching and seizing with the dreamcatcher bent over her, fangs locked around her jugular. Kennedy unzipped her coat and stuffed her hand inside, shaking like a leaf. She withdrew a small, black handgun and aimed down the sight. The Dreamcatcher paused and unhinged his powerful jaw, raising his head, gazing down at his victim almost lovingly as blood dribbled off his chin.

"I know you're there," he purred.

Her hand trembled, messing with her aim. "Aren't you gonna move?"

"No." The smile vanished from his face as he turned to look at her. "I hope you kill me."

Kennedy didn't know what to make of that. She didn't have time to think about whether or not it was a trap.

"Hold still," she said.

She pulled the trigger.