Disclaimer: I do not own any characters relating to either Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Stargate SG-1. This story is intended for entertainment purposes only and does not provide any financial compensation.

Return To Normal

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Chapter Six

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'Faith Lehane, is insane!'

She heard the refrain a lot growing up. Believed it, even, because it was true. She was pretty crazy. Bat-shit fucking insane, some of the time. Given the crap that happened at home, it was only to be expected. You don't fuck a kid over that badly for that long and expect them to come out of it anywhere close to 'normal.' Under the circumstances, Faith figured she had done pretty good. She didn't drink, at least not often, or takes drugs, or at least not the hard kind. Okay, she smoked sometimes, and screwed more people than she should, but given what she had been provided in the way of examples for adult role models, she was doing okay. She had a job, and her own place, and wasn't dead in a gutter somewhere…

But, if she listened hard enough, she could still hear the other kids taunting her. 'Faith Lehane, is insane!' At the time it had driven her fucking nuts, the way they had ganged up and hurled the words at her, as if the crap going on in her life and all that had happened to her was her fault. As if the clothes she wore or the food she ate were what she wanted, and not what she had been able to scrounge for herself when her parents were too far gone into drug-induced bliss to care that their daughter was trying to go to school, trying to learn something besides the sort of fucked-up shit they were teaching her, trying to pretend that she might be able to escape the sort of living hell they had made of their lives, and hers. But she was too different, too poor, too defensive, too anti-social; and the taunting never let up. She grew tough and hard and bitter, and by grade eight had given up on hoping that the education system might provide a way out. For years she had been determined to show them they couldn't force her out, that she was too tough to quit, that she could succeed despite them… but the taunting never ended, there were no words of encouragement from officials or family who just didn't care, and eventually she had just had enough of it.

Of course she pretended that she didn't care either. That she didn't need anyone, that she didn't need an education, that she considered them all saps for staying in school when she could use her body or her street-smarts to make some money, to be the master of her own destiny, to find a way out that wasn't dependant on school officials or the fucked-up bureaucracy of the fucked-up system. But even outside of school, even though the damned school made it real clear they didn't want her back, the 'system' did everything in its power to fuck her over. No matter how fucked up her mother and 'step father' were, they wouldn't let her get away from them. She was too young to be allowed to have a job, but any money from the state went to her mother, who immediately shot it or snorted it or drank it. She quickly learned that those people who were supposed to help her were the most dangerous, the most twisted, the worst of the predators. She did what she had to in order to survive, but it was as if the system was designed to ensure people like her didn't survive, that they gave up and started the long slow process of committing some form of chemically-assisted suicide. It was a miracle that she had survived at all.

A miracle named Buffy Summers.

It still amazed her that after all the crap she had gone through, all the things she needed to do in order to survive, would have all come to nothing had not a stranger suddenly appeared out of the shadows one dark night. A beautiful stranger –blonde, perky, short; small boobs-- not the sort of girl Faith normally found attractive, more like the antithesis of everything she found attractive in fact… the very personification of the kind of people she most hated, the kind of person most likely to look down on her and treat her like dirt-- okay, that train of thought had kind of derailed… but despite the way she looked, there had been something more to Buffy. Not just her amazing physical abilities, but a look in her eye, a hardness in her demeanor, which suggested she wasn't quite the pampered Princess she appeared to be. That she had seen and done things only someone like Faith, who had both been there and done that, would understand. Someone who understood that life well and truly sucked, but it marginally beat the alternative, so you did what you had to do just to survive another day, hoping that the next one might suck just a little bit less.

Even Faith knew that she was obsessing over the small blonde. It wasn't like she was the first person Faith had ever met who had learned the hard way about life's less pleasant aspects. But there was an obvious difference. Most of the other people she had known who, like her, were at the bottom of the social order had gone into weird crap to escape it; the goth scene, drugs, crime, any bizarre shit that got them away from a 'real world' which didn't want them and was doing its best to beat them down and keep them there. Despite a look in her eyes which made it pretty clear she had seen depths of human misery that was the equal of any of the fucked up shit any of the others had trolled, Buffy still looked and acted like she was a part of mainstream civilization. Even her name was a statement. There were no 'Buffy's' in goth-dom.

If Buffy had somehow made a life for herself in the real world despite seeing the bottom, Faith figured she had a chance at making it as well. She'd never known anyone who had made it before Buffy barged into her life, but just knowing it was actually possible made a big difference. So she took the opportunity Buffy had presented her and grabbed it with both hands, getting the fuck out of Boston the same day, planning ahead, thinking things through for once in her life, knowing she would never get another chance and desperate not to fuck this one up. Desperate to prove to Buffy –and prove to herself—that whatever Buffy saw in her which had made her want to give her a chance was justified, that she could make something of herself, that she was better than the garbage heap she came from and seemed destined to die in.

And, for the most part, she had succeeded. Knowing from painful personal experience that being underage meant she had no rights, her first objective was to score some good fake ID's. They had cost her far too much of Buffy's money, and even then she'd had to blow the sonuvabitch to get them. But the work was good, good enough to pass all of the standard tests. She didn't get too ambitious, getting a job bagging groceries when she first got to Denver, sleeping on a bunk at the 'Y,' opening a bank account and lying low. She didn't scream at random or cut herself like she used to, even though sometimes the pressure inside her head still needed some kind of outlet before she went fucking postal. She had always been pretty athletic and started running, exhausting herself, sometimes meeting up with cute guys on the jogging trail. One of them offered her a job. A real job, not the prostitute kind the others had offered in one form or another.

After cutting back on the makeup and buying some better clothes she accepted his offer, going to work as a waitress at a local club, where she earned more in tips most nights than she did in a week at the grocery. She was sexy as hell and knew how to work it, so became pretty popular, enough so that her jogging buddy offered her a chance to work behind the bar a few weeks later when the regular guy quit. Both of them were stunned at how good she was at it. Despite her grade eight education, Faith could take the orders for ten drinks, mix them all, charge the right price for each one and make correct change on the fly, all in her head. Not being a drinker she wasn't familiar with most of the weird concoctions people ordered, but she only had to be shown once and never forgot again.

Two months after being given a chance to make something of herself, Faith realized to her own shocked amazement that she actually had made something of herself. With some money in the bank she got her own apartment and started buying her own furniture. A month later she was living under better conditions, eating better, and enjoying better social standing than she had ever known in her entire life. But she realized that she was just marking time, unconsciously just waiting for Buffy to come for her. It was weird. She'd never been obsessed with anyone like she was with the tiny blonde girl, but she didn't even try to deny to herself that she fucking worshipped the ground Buffy walked on. After all the crap in her life Faith couldn't find it in herself to have any faith in a God who had obviously abandoned her, and if He thought He was getting all the credit for Buffy saving her ass, well, He had another think coming. Faith knew who deserved all the credit for getting her away from her own personal Hell, and if anyone deserved to be worshipped, it was her own personal pint-sized savior.

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It sort of bothered her that so much time had passed without Buffy contacting her, but it wasn't like she was sitting at home pining over her, doing nothing but waiting for her to call. She'd made a life for herself, gone out with a few guys, even fucked a couple of them. But that was how she felt about the act; she had fucked them, scratched a physiological itch. It had been sex, with no more intimacy than the rutting of livestock. There had been more genuine emotion in the quick kiss she had given Buffy than there had ever been in the physical act she had participated in simply to relieve her sexual tension. Although she was bothered by the lack of contact with Buffy, she understood it, and even expected it might last awhile. The look in Buffy's face when she had told Faith she had her own problems had been telling.

After waiting in line one too many times to use the machines at the library, Faith had even broken down and purchased a used computer to search the Web for anything on her object de lust, coming across the State Security posters which had later disappeared. There was a time when she would have sold out anyone she had ever known for a small fraction of the reward they were offering for information on Buffy. She never even considered it in this case. But it did confirm that whatever she was involved in, Buffy hadn't lied to her about having some serious enemies.

One day she was watching TV when suddenly every channel was showing the President arriving at Colorado Springs. Faith just about blew a gasket when they pre-empting the rerun of 'Veronica Mars' she had wanted to see. One of the few signs that modern civilization wasn't doomed was that a brilliant show like 'Veronica Mars' was watched by millions, near the top of the Neilson ratings, unlike retarded crap such as 'Ghost Whisperer' which appealed solely to the 'Under 50 IQ Points' demographic,' watched by a few people in their Rest Home as they imagined 'Crossing Over' snuggled up to Jennifer Love Hewitt's magnificent rack. She didn't give a rat's ass about the President even when he wasn't interrupting her television viewing pleasure, but when he started talking about aliens even she stopped bitching. Not many things were more important than 'Veronica Mars' reruns, but interstellar war was one of those things. Just barely maybe, but it met the criteria.

And then she saw her. Buffy. Kicking ass and taking names. The fucking President saying she had saved the world, and then doing it again on live fucking television. Back in her Boston hell-hole Faith had seen some serious shit, but nothing like the Buffinator ripping the head off a ten-foot-tall demon made of living rock, live and in color. Damn it was amazing! The commentators were practically having an orgasm. Once it was over, Faith obsessively read newspapers, watched the news, searched out the internet for everything she could find Buffy-related, and it was pretty apparent she wasn't the only one. The sheer volume of coverage was intimidating. Buffy's mother couldn't leave her house without being mobbed by reporters. Her best friend, a dyke named Willow Rosenberg –Faith frowned when she heard about Rosenberg's sexual orientation, and wondered if she had a relationship with Buffy, and knew she was jealous as hell about even the possibility—was ensconced in Cheyenne Mountain, untouchable after the one press conference they had forced her to attend. The press camped out in front of Rosenberg's new house –an old fixer-upper that Faith figured needed one helluva lot of fixer-upping before most people would consider it habitable—hoping to hear from Rosenberg's partner –Faith perked up and almost hamster-danced hearing that Rosenberg was taken—but the girl was barricaded inside and wouldn't come out.

Finally it was reported that she had been sighted in Los Angeles with her mother. Faith was pretty impressed with the way her mom handled the media scrum which followed, but not so impressed with the way Buffy's 'estranged' father claimed he would be acting as her agent and demanded that all media inquiries submit their financial proposals to him. Faith had a pretty good idea how that would go over with Buffy, and hoped like hell she didn't end up having to be the one to tell her that the douche bag was trying to pimp her out. Still, the media frenzy was amazing to watch. Even the SGC dudes, who did some serious 'save the world' shit in their own right, almost always turned every story into another excuse to showcase Buffy's talents. The media indulged them because they were more interested in Buffy anyway. Buffy was young and pretty and not so intimidating with multi-barreled PhD's or sheer creepy 'fuck-with-me-and-I'll-kill-you' glares like the SG-1 crew had, so if the SGC wanted to them to concentrate on Buffy, the media was happy to play along. Two weeks after the attempted alien invasion, about the only thing most people remembered about it was that Buffy Summers was there to take care of it, and had looked damned hot doing it.

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There was nothing unusual about going to work that night. No signs in the heavens, no psychic warnings. Just another day, another tight white shirt over a pushup bra, emphasize the goodies to increase the tips, check out the rear-view to ensure the leathers were accentuating what was there to be accentuated, get on the bike and ride to work, just like she did four nights a week. Nothing unusual about the ride, greet the usual co-workers, set up the usual bottles, clean the usual glasses, count the usual float. The next few hours were pretty standard as well; loud music, bouncing lights, lots of strange concoctions mixed for lots of strange people. Smile at everyone, laugh at the appropriate place even if you didn't understand the joke, flirt with everyone, man or woman, but never let it go further than that with a customer, enjoy the lights and the sounds and the beat and the sensuality of the place, despite her feeling apart from the crowd even when she was a part of the crowd.

There was a Rap Artiste performing. Faith tried not to cringe. As always, she wanted to go up and politely explain to them that they sucked. It didn't matter what their mom told them, or the people they paid to promote them told them; they sucked. It was a cultural thing. If you were a white guy trying to rap, and your name wasn't Eminem, you sucked, by definintion. You did not have 'street cred' because you did a few months in minimum security for tax evasion. You were a poseur; a pathetic bitch who would crap yourself if you ever came face to face with a real rapper. Rap was channeled rage; anger given voice over a hot jungle beat. Overhearing the sanitized bastardization of true rap blaring over the sound system, Faith wanted to gouge out her ear drums with an ice pick. But she didn't, because that wasn't what 'normal' people did, and she reminded herself she was pretending to be someone 'normal.' That, in her own way, she was as much a poseur as the ridiculously attired wigger on stage.

She was distracted from her musings by one of the servers. Someone wanted to talk to her. Nothing unusual; she was hot and her voice was low and smoky and people liked listening to her almost as much as they liked looking at her. But what this guy said next wasn't usual. He said someone claimed to know her. Someone from Boston. At first she was afraid, quickly looking up, fearfully searching for one of Rutherford's goons, knowing she shouldn't have kicked him in the balls like that but damn, it had been sweeeet… but it wasn't an unkempt Russian Mafiosi who captured her attention. For a second she didn't even know who it was, just that she was beautiful, and tiny, and looked so young she should be wearing two giant neon signs saying 'Jail' and 'Bait' in flashing red letters over each shoulder so that nobody did anything stupid. Because a lot of people would want to do something stupid, given that she was wearing a skin-tight, backless, shimmering little sequined dress on her tight little body, and 'fuck-me' pumps on her dainty feet, and was beautiful, and hot, and looked ready to party…

For a second she wondered how Edgar could have ever allowed someone so young into the club, until her lingering glance worked its way up the slinky body and finally reached her eyes. Green eyes. Sad, and tired, and far, far too old for her immature-looking but admittedly seriously hot body. Huge, oceans-deep eyes which somehow conveyed the fact that they had seen the depths of hell, and fought their way through it.

Buffy's eyes.

She didn't even realize she was moving until she found herself on the other side of the bar, having leaped over it without once taking her eyes off of those of the girl she would never have recognized without seeing those unmistakable eyes. As she walked through the crowded dance floor to the table where Buffy sat with some strangers, Faith mentally catalogued the astounding physical changes. Her hair had been dyed black, and cut in a sweeping punkish style which didn't really suit her, but had probably been required by what had happened during the fight at the airport. Her entire face had changed shape; her nose seemed longer, cheeks more pronounced, the baby-fat which once gave her face a pixiesh beauty burned away. She was a bit shorter, much thinner, boobs practically nonexistent, legs a mile long and so slender every woman in the club over twenty hated her for them alone. She looked like the models Faith occasionally saw being escorted to the club by men decades older; only not as pouty, not so self-centered, not so vacuous. Buffy's eyes were brilliant and sparkling and alive with curiosity, looking directly at Faith with happiness and amusement and more than a touch of nervousness.

As she approached the table Buffy stood, and Faith didn't even pause to think, to consider her actions, to wonder if her presence meant what she hoped it meant. She didn't think about those things because she couldn't think about them. All she wanted to do was do exactly what she did: take the beautiful girl in her arms and kiss her senseless, ignoring the reaction from the stunned onlookers, the wolf-whistles from the crowd. There was a bit of resistance at first, the tiny girl reacting with shock to the unexpected kiss, but that quickly gave way to appreciation for the emotional intensity of it, the sheer desperate need Faith was unable to hide, the sensuality and overwhelming desire she made no attempt to restrain. Everything she had wanted to say since she first met Buffy –was first saved by Buffy—she put into that kiss, saying more than her own inadequate faculty with words would ever have been able to express. Her joy. Her appreciation. Her desperate desire. Her incredible need.

When the spectacular kiss finally ended, Buffy was mortified to realize they had become the center of attention for everyone in the club. Even the moron on stage was staring at them, open-mouthed. But Faith didn't care. She just held on to the girl and smiled down at her. "I knew you'd find me. I've been waiting for you."

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Even two girls as sensual as Faith and Buffy found there were limits to the amount of time they could spend making love, despite the bliss of their new relationship. Granted it took a few days before they found any reason to leave the apartment, and even then it was because Buffy wanted to know what her friend had been doing since arriving in Denver. Never much for making friends, Faith hadn't had much in the way of social interactions, until she finally came upon something she knew even a Slayer might enjoy.

Always hyper, her body filled with too much energy and needing to release it in a manner more adrenaline-inducing than simple exercise would permit, Faith had begun participating in an 'extreme sport' known as parkour. Actually, because Denver didn't have the sort of urban density parkour's European inventors were able to exploit, she was a practitioner of what was called 'Free Running.' Basically it was using urban environments as an obstacle course, with the objective of maintaining continuous motion and speed despite any intervening obstacles. Free Running added stylized gymnastic movements which weren't strictly necessary to the objectives of parkour, but they looked cool, and 'looking cool' was an objective in itself. It required nerves of steel, perfect timing, extraordinary gymnastic talent, and the not-so-trivial ability to land on concrete without shattering your knees.

Buffy had never seen anything like it, and fell in love with the concept immediately. Her physical condition limited the moves she could perform, meaning she was accepted as a gifted expert by the others in the troupe Faith practiced with, rather than the superhuman abilities she could already see in her mind's-eye once she was fully recovered. She was less interested in the physical artistry of free running than she was in the efficient escape and evasion concept of true parkour. It was a way of looking at her environment she had never considered, a philosophy that complemented her own innate physical gifts as the Slayer. Beyond the philosophy there were techniques the parishioners had developed for running, jumping, and most especially falling that she quickly adapted to her own training regime.

Despite wounds which weren't completely healed, within a few hours Buffy was pulling moves none of the other could dream of matching, so she pulled it back a notch or two to fit in with the group. Not only did she not want them to wonder who she might be, but she wanted to learn from their greater experience. Plus it was a lot of fun. By nature and inclination she was quite competitive, but she was also in a new relationship and didn't want to screw it up by showing off. The four others in the group, three men and a woman, weren't exactly best friends with Faith, but were the closest thing to it Buffy had ever met, even back in Sunnydale, so she did some not-so-subtle digging into what they knew of Faith's tastes and feelings.

It was exactly the right thing to do, diverting them from considering her own abilities by concentrating on her motivations, which were understandably on uncovering whatever information she could on her partner. They teased her a bit about it, some showing more than a bit of jealousy, the other woman most of all. Evidently they had all made a play for Faith, but hadn't gotten anywhere. That surprised Buffy. The Faith she knew back in Sunnydale would not have been so restrained. She had never been one to impose a requirement for emotional intimacy on sexual acts, had treated it more like any other physical function such as going to the toilet or breathing. In the here-and-now, this Faith was more discriminating. Not quite looking to join a nunnery, but not prepared to scratch an itch with the nearest available body either.

Over the next week they went out almost daily to practice at various locations. There was a sense of adventure and thrill-seeking to it that added that extra spice to their activities once they returned to Faith's apartment. Even more than the sex, it was the sheer joy in Faith's expression as they leapt between parkade levels, or climbed the outside of balconies, that Buffy most savored. Because she knew that it wouldn't last. It wouldn't be long before she would be sufficiently recovered to go back to the SGC, and would have to leave. Faith was the most self-reliant person Buffy had ever met, but she was aware that in many ways that was out of necessity rather than choice. Their relationship was already the most serious one Faith had ever known, and they both knew that it would devastate her when Buffy had to leave.

Knowing that the end could come at any time made for some pretty intense evenings. That intensity, in turn, made it that much more difficult to contemplate the inevitable end. Once Buffy returned to work, it would be very difficult for her to return to Denver. Planning for her rematch with the First would occupy all of her time. Bringing Faith to Colorado Springs was a non-starter. She was using fake ID, she was hiding from a big-time gangster, and she was underage. In terms of 'life experience' she had seen and done more than people twice her age… but that wouldn't prevent the cops from returning her to Boston if they found her.

Buffy had been checking her email each day, grateful that Willow had taught her how to do it without leaving a trace that anyone could backtrack to her present location. It was only partly paranoia. She didn't want anyone to use her to find Faith. Even though she wasn't deliberately looking for news on herself, she couldn't help but note even in passing that she remained pretty far up in the media spotlight. Her 'fame' didn't mean she would be in any position to help Faith if she did something stupid and brought media attention down on her. The SGC had helped her out when she was concerned with Willow's safety, but unfortunately Faith didn't have the sort of skills they were looking for. Which was a shame, because it was becoming really important to Buffy that she figure out a way to protect Faith, and let her enjoy the life she had made for herself through sheer guts and incredibly hard work.

Eleven days after showing up in Denver there was a message from General Hammond in her inbox. Things were happening, and they needed her back, if she felt up to it. He was very careful to state that he wasn't demanding she return, only that there were political considerations regarding taking actions against the First which she might want to address. Reading between the lines, the message was clear: the government didn't want to take on yet another powerful opponent, and unless she could convince them it was necessary, they were going to pass on the conflict.

Immediately replying that she would be returning to the Mountain as soon as possible, Buffy went to find Faith. She was trying to think of a way to tell her friend that she had to leave, without coming across as yet another of the many people who had abandoned Faith in her short, but so far unforgivably brutal, life.