"I wouldn't call anyone, if I were you, especially not 911," Verity ground out, even as she rocked her body with all the force she could muster while face down on the ground with hands and feet handcuffed, making serious attempts to force Buffy off her or at least prevent her from having firm hold of her. "I mean, what do you think they're gonna do, when they come in here and see a murdered woman with a handcuffed little girl nearby? Who do you think will get the blame- me, or you?"

Faith's head swiveled towards her, vision briefly blurring as her already sparking anger expanded into a flare of rage. Forgetting about the tranquilizers, she barked back at Verity, even as she kept her hands pressed hard against Tanya's bleeding throat.

"You shut your fucking mouth, just shut the fuck up! How could you do this?! She's your own mother, your fucking mother!"

Buffy grabbed Verity's hair, yanking her head back hard enough for the girl to flinch, and punched her in the cheekbone, maybe in effort to "assist" Verity into silence, maybe just because it felt satisfying. Verity's wriggling halted for the moment as she took the impact of a Slayer's blow. With this added time given, Buffy fumbled for the taser, activating it firmly against the center of Verity's back. The girl spasmed, gasping, and as Buffy tased her a second time for good measure, Faith almost cheered.

Buffy replaced the taser on her belt, reaching for one of the syringes. But Verity chuckled again, sounding no less satisfied even as her words came out in gasps and her body lay limply beneath the older girl's.

"You know what they'll see, don't you? The police, the ER, whoever it is you're planning on calling before you take me away? I didn't do any of this. Not me. You know who they'll say is responsible, you know who they'll be going after? You. Both of you."

"Yeah, I'm getting really tired of hearing you speak, I think it's time for a nap," Buffy declared. She uncapped the syringe in her hand, preparing it to descend, but Faith shook her head at her on impulse.

"Wait, Buffy, don't, not yet," she blurted. It was a mark of Buffy's reflexes that she was able to jerk her hand to a stop, centimeters from the needle injecting Verity's neck. "What is she talking about."

"Faith, it doesn't matter," Buffy argued, not shifting her hands to give more space between Verity's body and the needle's tip. "It's all talk, it doesn't matter."

But it could. Knowing Verity, it did- and if they continued to plunge forward blindly into Verity's world, Verity's territory, they would only continue to make mistakes others would pay for, possibly with their lives.

"No, it might," Faith murmured, not taking her eyes off Verity. "What are you saying, Kitty? And make it fast, or I'll send you into dreamland myself."

"Well, when the police arrive, or the paramedics, whichever has the faster response time…they'll see how things really are, of course," Verity elaborated. Although she didn't move, presumably very aware of the proximity of the needle to her back, she nevertheless managed to give off the impression of someone showing a careless shrug or head toss. "They'll understand that I didn't do any of this, I'm just the innocent victim. There will be records, of course, not to mention witnesses, showing that you kidnapped me from school after falsely impersonating social services, and took me into your custody under false pretenses and against my will. Then you physically assaulted me, resulting in my broken wrist. After I managed a brave and near miraculous escape, you stalked me to my home and broke into my house, after again impersonating others, this time police officers. After conning my mother, you stabbed her in the throat, murdering her in front of my eyes-"

"You lying little bitch," Buffy hissed, giving Verity's head a vicious yank backward by the hair. "None of this is true!"

Technically, some of it was. Just enough that it was possible that Verity was exactly right, that this would be the story law enforcement would believe. From what Faith had encountered of cops, they weren't always the smartest people on the planet, and how much simpler would it be to believe Verity's version of events over theirs?

"Well, they'll have a hard time believing that to be the case, since they'll find your fingerprints on the knife you were stupid enough to touch, your DNA all over my mother, myself, and our home, and my mother's blood spattered over you from very close proximity," Verity shot back. "I'm sure they'll have no trouble connecting the dots, especially with my hand guiding the pencil."

Fuck, what if she was right? She had a point there.

"Thanks, but we'll take our chances," Buffy said coldly, pressing the tip of the syringe just a little more firmly into the girl's back without yet actually piercing her skin. "Do you actually have anything to say that would help your mother have a chance of surviving, because otherwise it's time for me to shut you up."

Faith's hands slid, slick and sticky with Tanya Catlett's blood, even as she attempted to keep it inside of her body. She worried as the woman's eyes bugged out if she was pressing too hard against her throat, if she was choking as much because of the pressure of a Slayer's hands against her neck as because of the flow of blood, but it could not be helped. She could hardly take her hands away; the woman would probably die in seconds. Already she had gone deathly pale, even her lips taking on a bluish tinge, and her eyes rolled upward as she lost consciousness. Watching, Verity snickered, ignoring Buffy's semi-question.

"Oh, look, another murder you're responsible for! Just like Giabella and the drunken bum!"

"You did this!" Faith spat out. "You did this and you'll pay the price for it, Verity, I swear we'll make it happen."

"No, actually, I won't," Verity countered, almost bored in tone. "For any of it. The other deaths, either, the ones you're so sure I'm responsible for? Wrong again, those were you too. I'll help them figure that out if they can't do it on their own, but I'm sure it will be obvious, once they see how you killed my mother and tried to kill me, before I made my courageous and miraculous escape. Because I will, you know. You might think you have me now, and maybe you're right, but you won't keep me for long. I'm a Slayer, you said so yourself. What can you do with me even if I wasn't, lock me up forever? I'm a kid, that's illegal. So go ahead, do your thing. You're still going to lose."

With a sharp gesture, Buffy did as Verity had tauntingly invited, jabbing the tranquilizing syringe into her spine. Verity twitched slightly in response, moving her hands and feet in straining effort against her cuffs, but then went still and quiet. Buffy remained atop her for several moments, eying her suspiciously, and Faith couldn't blame her. She half expected Verity to suddenly start wriggling and flailing as much as her limited mobility would allow again, catching Buffy by surprise, but the sedative appeared to have taken genuine effect.

There was no time to take a breath of relief. Tanya's already shallow breaths were growing shorter, the length between the rise and the fall of her chest lengthening, and as Faith registered this, her breathing stopped entirely.

"Buffy, she isn't breathing!"

Buffy looked down at Verity first, frowning as she ascertained that the girl was in fact not somehow in actual distress rather than simply unconscious.

"Yes she is, Faith, she's just- oh!"

Scrambling to her feet and almost tripping over Verity's in the process, Buffy hurried to Tanya's hunched form, kneeling down beside Faith. She touched the woman's chest in what Faith assumed was an attempt to hear if her heart was beating, then straightened, her features strained.

"Lay her flat on her back, and keep your hands over her wound. I'm going to try CPR."

Faith followed her instructions, noting with anxiety that the woman's skin was already cooling to the touch, possibly from the lack of blood still in her body. Buffy began to give her chest compressions, counting aloud, but as she bent awkwardly over her to give her mouth to mouth, the woman's lungs didn't fill with her effort.

"I think your breath is just coming out her throat, it isn't making it to the lungs," Faith said tersely, shaking her head. "Is her heart beating?"

Buffy didn't answer, repeating the cycle of chest compressions and efforts at breathing into her lungs several more times. Eventually she sat back heavily on her heels beside Faith, her shoulder knocking against her, but she seemed not to notice the overlap of space. Letting her arms drop down to her sides and lowering her head, Buffy exhaled somewhat shakily through her nose. She didn't have to say anything for Faith to understand. Tanya Catlett had just become the latest of Verity's victims.

Angry, frustrated tears burned in Faith's vision before she willed them back, and she punched the floor, barely registering the sensation of the blow against her fist. Buffy stared down at her bloodied hands without attempting to wipe or cleanse them evenly partly. It would have been a useless effort; both Slayers were so drenched in Tanya's blood that their skin would probably appear stained red even after being washed. Nevertheless, Faith tried, scrubbing her hands hard against her pants. It did little good, and what she did manage to rub off seemed to burn through the thin material so she could still feel it against her skin.

Without speaking, Buffy reached over to still Faith's hands against her legs, covering them with hers. She squeezed lightly, then rubbed her palms against Faith's, transferring some of the blood from her hands onto her own- making the distribution equal between them. It was an odd thing to do, but it was done in such a bittersweet, understanding manner that some of the heaviness lifted from Faith's chest, just enough for her to be able to form words.

"We can't help her, Buffy."

She was looking at Tanya's body as she spoke, but both she and Buffy knew whom she was really referring to. The dead woman's daughter, though still very much alive, was still just as void of hope.

Faith had refused to believe it until now, refused to even consider the possibility that a human being could exist that was not redeemable. How could she believe that, when she and everyone else had once believed this about herself? How could she give up on the possibility of good in someone when someone had not given up on the possibility of good within herself?

Maybe things would be different, if Angel stood here now instead of her and Buffy. Maybe as someone centuries removed from his own humanity, he knew or understood something about mortals that she and Buffy were too limited in their own knowledge and experience to see. Maybe his lack of humanity was exactly what was needed to see the humanity still dimly lit within Verity Catlett- and maybe this was what was needed to save her.

But maybe it wasn't. Maybe in the time that it took to contact Angel, convince him to come to them, or transport Verity to him, Verity would manage to engineer one of her infamous escapes. Maybe she would take out other innocent lives in the process- possibly even Faith or Buffy themselves.

Maybe she could still be saved, if not by Faith or Buffy. But for the first time, as Faith forced herself to truly consider every option- including the option of her failure on Verity's behalf- she made herself acknowledge the logic behind Buffy's earlier voiced conviction.

Even if it was possible to save Verity, Faith was no longer willing to take that risk. Not when other lives would likely pay the price. Not if losing Buffy, in whatever way that might occur, was a possible consequence.

Her breath coming out in a shuddering exhalation, Faith shifted her gaze to Verity, letting her eyes linger over her. She let the weight of her decision settle fully, a heavy mantle of responsibility giving her body invisible but very present weight, as she spoke again.

"We can't save her."

Buffy nodded, the hand resting against Faith's entwining their fingers in a gentle hold. She kept her gaze on Faith rather than Verity or her mother as she replied.

"I know. I know, Faith, but I didn't want it to be true."

Faith heard herself speaking, but the words sounded to her as though they were coming from a distance, unconnected to herself.

"I thought…if we tried hard enough, or cared enough…"

She didn't finish the sentence. The words seemed too vulnerably raw to be spoken out loud, and it would take little insight for Buffy to understand what she had not said.

"It's a hard lesson to learn," Buffy murmured, her eyes still focused on Faith, averted from the still figures on the floor. "Every heroine starts off wanting to save everyone. Tame every dragon, rescue every damsel. But not everyone can be saved. Victim and villain both."

Her hand slid slowly apart from Faith's, though she did not shift her body away from her. Faith swallowed, tearing her eyes away from Verity with a jerk of her head. Her stomach lurched at the thought of what she knew must happen, as she tried to imagine just how it would come about.

"Buffy…I don't want to do this."

"Faith," Buffy said quietly, almost sadly, but Faith shook her head, overriding her.

"I promised myself I would never kill another human being, Buffy. I swore on my own life that no matter what, I wouldn't sink to that level again."

"This is different." Buffy's words were careful as she took a step back from Faith, assessing her. "I know you don't take this lightly, Faith, and neither do I. We shouldn't. But this isn't the same sort of thing as that."

"No," Faith agreed, the words soft and scratchy in sound. "It isn't, exactly. But it's close. Too close for me to feel the difference."

She swallowed again, pressing her lips into a thin line, aware of tears standing in her eyes. This time she could not fully force them away, and she knew Buffy likely could see them shining, not quite released.

"I don't want to do it, Buffy. I know it has to be done, but…."

She turned away, needing to present her back then as a wall against Verity, against her murdered mother, against the harsh, all too real knowledge that both she and Buffy harbored of the brutal action that was necessary. Biting down on the inside of her cheeks, she let her head drop forward, tensing her muscles against the storm of grief pressing against her chest.

After several moments of silence, a light hand pressed against Faith's back, causing its muscles to twitch in response. Even under the heavy, nauseatingly metallic scent of blood covering their bodies, Faith could smell the unique smell that was just Buffy, close by, and it was enough to give a measure of soothing before the other woman spoke.

"You won't have to."

Faith's processing of her words was delayed; she was still attempting to puzzle out Buffy's meaning when the Slayer pulled back, turning to face Verity's still unconscious form. With slow, measured steps she approached her, standing over her for several moments before she knelt beside her on the ground. Faith watched, her brow furrowed, as Buffy's eyes briefly flickered to the knife beside Tanya Catlett. But in the end, she did not choose it as her weapon. Instead, she took Verity's head into both of her hands, and in one quick, efficient move, snapped her neck to the side, hard enough to sever its vertebrae.

And then it was over, so much more quickly than it had all begun. One moment, Verity Catlett was a living, breathing person, a human being with endlessly complicated thoughts, memories, and intentions tucked away inside herself. A sister slayer, a present connection to themselves in a long chain of girls chosen now, then, and yet to be. In the next moment, she was just an empty shell, vacant of everything that had made her a person just a breath before. Verity Catlett no longer existed; all that was left of her was a body, joining the long list of the dead that the Slayers had encountered.

The threat that Verity had posed, the harm she had intended to inflict, was over now, ended before it could begin. The mission Faith had been sent on and recruited Buffy into was resolved, with only details of its aftermath to be managed now. But although they might acknowledge the mission as over, neither could ever view it as anything remotely resembling a success or triumph.

With slightly unsteady legs, Buffy stepped back from Verity's body, her eyes drifting up towards Faith's. Her lips pressed together, suppressing any words that might have escaped her, and although her jaw was set, her shoulders straight, back erect with seeming confidence, her hazel eyes glittered, and a muscle in her cheek twitched with all the emotion she did not release.

Taking her in, Faith's thoughts emptied out, every word she attempted to speak drying up before they made it to the tip of her tongue. A feeling of shakiness born of unvented adrenaline and sorrow began to trickle though her, adding an odd weight to her chest and limbs, but Faith ignored it, taking one step forward, then another, until she had come to stand directly beside Buffy's unmoving frame. When she lifted a halting hand, grazing it against Buffy's arm, it overshot, brushing her hip rather than coming to rest against her wrist. Faith let the clumsy limb stay where it had landed, her fingertips lightly pressed against the curve of Buffy's hip.

She wasn't sure what the hell she was doing, and she didn't dare make a guess about what it was that Buffy might want or need. But when Buffy's breath released in a loud, shuddering exhale, and she closed her eyes, her hands reaching out blindly and grasping for Faith's, Faith took them and stilled them, squeezing them hard in her own. Buffy's body lurched forward, almost falling into hers, and as her face pressed down against Faith's shoulder, Faith could feel the heat of slowly seeping tears against her skin. Pulling her hands free, she swallowed hard and gathered Buffy into her arms.

After a few moments of holding Buffy in silence, with Buffy's hands awkwardly trapped between them, Buffy pulled them loose, wrapping her arms tightly around Faith's waist. The Slayers held each other, giving each other the physical weight of the other's strength until their rapid heartbeats began to slow, the tension of their muscles eased, and their last tears had shed. Even then, they hung on, reluctant to ease away just yet.

Even after sources of evil were dealt with, after all, there was still the aftermath of deal with.