Chapter 11
"Damn it!" Faith slammed the jail cell door shut. It echoed noisily, loud and metallic, through the empty prison. After a few false starts and wrong turns she'd found the castle's prison. Unfortunately it was empty - no Buffy and no one who might be able to tell her where she'd gone or if she'd even been here in the first place.
She tugged at her hair in frustration and bit back a tormented sob. She'd trusted Hank's assurances that a slayer, whom she'd been told was Buffy, had been taken prisoner. She had been so desperate to find her girlfriend that she'd blindly trusted this man and his group of species-ist haters, just as she'd blindly jumped through Aimee's magic portal into this godforsaken dimension.
Get it together, Lehane, she chastised. She wiped at her damp face with the back of her hand. Now wasn't the time to feel sorry for herself. Buffy was still out there, somewhere.
The battle between demon and humans had already begun by the time Faith made her way from the basement dungeon to the throne room. It wasn't hard to find the inner sanctum – she had only to follow the river of blood that trickled across the castle's cobblestone floors. The throne room was filled with the sounds and stench of dying. Anyone with a weaker stomach would have left. A saner person, too. But Faith was neither weak nor sane. She had to find Buffy, even if it meant trudging through dismembered body parts and entrails.
As she entered the large hall, her ears were met with the clang of swords and the grunts, groans, and screams of battle. An armored demon rushed her from the left side, a broad sword raised over its head as it charged her. She sidestepped the attack and laid a paralyzing blow to the creature's sword arm. It shrieked and the weapon slipped from its hand. She immediately retrieved the sword and stuck it deep into the creature's stomach. The monster doubled over its wound and made a gurgled protest before the life faded from its eyes. Faith shoved the demon off her sword with a solid boot to its chest, and its lifeless form crumpled to the ground.
Eyes narrowed and body tensed, she scanned the chaos in search of a familiar flash of blonde hair. If Buffy wasn't here in the throne room, Faith was prepared to rip open every door to every room on every level of this castle in order to find her.
Everywhere she looked she witnessed struggle. It was a massacre, just as she'd suspected. There hadn't been time to properly train the stubborn humans and they were paying the price with their lives. There were a few dead demons scattered on the throne room floor, but most of the carnage was the humans who had enlisted Faith's help.
"This isn't right," she murmured to herself. Her eyes darted around the vast room, not missing a single, bloody death as one-by-one the humans fell. "We need to retreat."
A wave of nausea overwhelmed her senses at the sight of so much death – men and women's faces twisted in agony for their final breaths. She brought a hand to her forehead and wiped away the mix of blood and sweat. She was a slayer – a warrior – a champion, but that didn't mean she ever got used to bloodshed.
Across the room, separated by a dozen or so demons and twice as many humans, the sharp clang of weapons meeting drew her attention. Buffy fought off two armed humans, each with a broadsword in hand. Buffy's own blade was clean, but the same couldn't be said for her human attackers. Faith watched as Buffy used the sword to deflect her human attackers and rendered them unconscious with the blunt edge of her sword's handle.
When dark eyes met hazel-green across the throne room, Faith's weapon fell uselessly at her side. "Buffy." The name slipped out her parted lips like a reverent prayer.
Buffy's head jerked up. "Faith?" Her broad sword fell from her fingers to land noisily on the ground. She sprang from the balls of her feet and propelled herself in Faith's direction.
The sounds of struggled continued, but all Faith could focus on was the petite blonde weaving and dodging the outstretched arms of others as she crossed the throne room. Strong legs wrapped around Faith's torso and muscled thighs squeezed her ribcage. Two arms were thrown around her neck and fingers interwove themselves with loose brunette waves. It had only been a few days, but Faith couldn't remember when she'd craved Buffy's touch, her mouth, her teeth, as much.
She threw weary arms around her girlfriend's torso to hold her steady, and she groaned when Buffy's fingers fisted and tugged on her hair near her scalp. There was no time for words or explanation. There was only the mashing of mouths and the tangling of tongues.
A small, nagging voice warned Faith that this wasn't smart. They were in the middle of a battlefield and she could be cut down at any moment. But she told that common-sensical voice to shut the fuck up because she had better things to do than worry about her safety when Buffy's mouth was latched to her ear and her teeth were grazing the lobe.
"What are you doing here?" Buffy's voice was hot on her ear.
Faith felt an inappropriate chuckle bubble up her throat. "Rescuing you, obviously."
"Enough!" A booming voice echoed through the chamber. The floor perceptibly trembled and for the moment, the fighting stopped. "There's been enough blood lost today."
Faith craned her neck to find the source of the authoritative voice. Standing in the threshold of the throne room stood a slender woman in a long, flowing gown. Her shoulder-length hair was black, nearly iridescent, set apart by bright blue eyes on a serene face.
"Drop your weapons."
Faith watched as everyone, demon and human alike, followed the woman's command.
"Leave. Now. While you still have your lives." The woman's vibrant eyes narrowed. "Do not mistake this kindness for weakness."
Faith shuddered. Every time the woman spoke she could feel the words rattle through her teeth. It was obvious there was something otherworldly about her. She wasn't just another human.
Buffy slid down Faith's torso and back to her feet. "If you could have made the fighting stop so easily, why didn't you do it sooner?" she addressed the other woman. "Why did you allow this fighting to happen at all?"
"Faith!" Hank, the man who had originally procured her to help the humans, rushed to her side. Faith didn't know if she was relieved to find that he was still alive or not. "It's time to go." His face was splattered with blood. "We'll get her another time."
Faith grabbed Buffy's hand and refused to let go. "I'm staying."
Hank shrugged. "Suit yourself."
The remaining humans hustled out of the throne room without looking back, leaving their fallen comrades behind.
Buffy drew herself to her full height. "They'll be back you know."
The woman wrinkled her nose. "I'm very well aware of the resilience of humanity, Slayer. But if you hadn't noticed, they were losing and you were winning. I was saving them from more bloodshed."
Faith's attention ping-ponged between the woman and Buffy. It suddenly struck her – Buffy had been fighting with the demons, not against them. That made her what – their leader?
Buffy's free hand went to her hip while her other remained firmly locked with Faith's. "I can't do this. You can't expect me to defend you from the humans in this world. My entire purpose is to save humans from demons, not the other way around."
"Your job is to keep the balance of Good and Evil, Slayer," the woman countered. "And in this world, things aren't so black and white."
"Can someone tell me what the hell is going on?" Faith demanded.
Buffy twitched as though she'd forgotten the other slayer's presence. "Oh. Right. You don't know. Faith, meet The First. The First, meet Faith."
The woman's lip curled up on one side. "Oh, we've already met, dear. I just looked a little different back then."
The shower was running in the attached bathroom. Faith sat on the unmade bed in the sparsely decorated room, staring at her hands. The blood and gore from battle had been washed away, but she wasn't feeling the same post-battle euphoria that usually came after an intense fight. She figured it was because, unlike other times, she was still in danger. She was in another dimension and was now playing houseguest of the First Evil. Buffy still had yet to explain what had happened to her in the days since she'd dimension hopped, and Faith eagerly awaited learning how Buffy had gone from Capital Offender to working with The First.
The shower turned off in the other room and moments later Buffy emerged, one towel tied tightly around her torso and another for her hair. "God, I feel better," she sighed.
Faith jumped up from the bed at her entrance. "We need to talk."
"I know we do," Buffy frowned. "But I was hoping we could ignore reality for a little bit longer. I just got you back."
"Because you left without telling anyone, B!" Faith's body vibrated in agitation. "Why would you do that?"
Buffy sat down on the edge of her mattress, still in her towel. She tugged the towel from her head and her hair tumbled free to rest wetly on her shoulders. "I had to find my daughter. And none of you believed me. It was something I had to do."
Faith remained on her feet, pacing the length of the room. "I can understand why you thought it was necessary, but you just left without a word. And how the hell did you become the general of the demons?"
Buffy's lips quirked. "It's a long story."
"Then give me the short version," Faith ran a hand roughly through her hair, "because I'm running out of patience."
"It was to protect Nora." Buffy's hands clenched into fists on her lap. "If the humans attacked, they could have gone after her, too."
Faith's jaw dropped slightly. "She's…she's really here?"
When Faith had found the Belly Book, her memories of Buffy's pregnancy had slowly started to come back as the magic wore off, but there had still been a part of her brain that couldn't wrap itself around the idea that Buffy hadn't had a miscarriage when she'd been stabbed in the stomach on her wedding day so many months ago.
Buffy nodded. "It was The First all along. She kidnapped Nora and changed all your memories so that only I would go looking for her."
Faith swallowed. "Seems like a pretty intense scheme for revenge."
"It's all about creating balance in the world again." Buffy closed her eyes and sighed deeply, letting all the air escape her lungs. "One Girl in All the World."
"You mean splitting you and me up."
Buffy's eyes re-opened and she trained her gaze on the hurt she found on Faith's features. She wanted to kiss it all away, but knew now wasn't the time for that.
"The First won't stop until there's just one slayer to each dimension."
"Then we find another way to beat this thing," Faith said, setting her jaw in a hard line. "We did it once. We can do it again."
Buffy swung her dangling feet back and forth. In a towel, hair still wet from the shower, and face makeup free, Faith thought she looked decades younger. "Things are different now, Faith. Last time we fought the First, it was to save the world from complete destruction. And I was ready to sacrifice everything and everyone to do that. Dawn, Giles, Xander, Willow…" she swallowed hard, "you…everyone's life including mine, was on the chopping block."
Faith took a seat on the bed next to Buffy. "But now there's Nora," she stated, starting to understand Buffy's hesitance. She took Buffy's hand in hers, intertwining their fingers.
"Faith, you haven't seen her," Buffy breathed. "She's beautiful. The most beautiful little girl I've ever seen."
"Of course she is. If she's even half as beautiful as you are, she's got everyone in this world beat."
"Half the people on this planet are demons," Buffy smiled softly, "but I'll take the compliment."
"We have to go back," Faith said. "This isn't our world. It's not our home."
Buffy stiffened next to her. "My home was swallowed by a Hellmouth. My home is a crater."
"Your home is with me." Faith tightened her grip on Buffy's hand. "It's with Dawn, and Giles, and Willow, and Xander, and fuck, it's even with Kennedy."
Buffy's eyelashes fluttered. "And Nora?"
"Of course."
"The First won't allow it." Buffy shut her eyes and willed the tears to go unshed. "I go back and it'll just keep tormenting us. We won't be safe."
Faith barked out a laugh. "When have we ever been safe? It's not really what we signed up for as super hot chicks with super powers."
Buffy's shoulders slumped. "I don't know if I can go through that again – another face off with The First in our world."
"So you what...you just give up? The First wins and you stay here in this world?" Faith's eyes narrowed. "That doesn't sound like you. That's not the woman I fell in love with."
Buffy stared at her kneecaps, just visible beneath the oversized bath towel. "Maybe I'm not her anymore."
Faith twisted at her torso to face the other slayer. "You're Buffy fucking Summers. We'll find a way." She touched her hand to the side of Buffy's face and stroked the pad of her thumb along the blonde's cheekbone. "We always do."
Buffy leaned into Faith's reassuring touch and laid her hand over Faith's. She turned her head so she could kiss the brunette's palm. "Thank you." The words came out rough and unsure. "I needed to hear that."
Faith smiled, and the corners of her generous mouth tugged up in hope. "So does that mean you're not giving up?"
Buffy's shoulders, once crumpled from the weight of defeat, now straightened. "That's exactly what it means. We defeated The First once, and we'll do it again."
TBC
